Joshua's RV-9A Project

After lunch, work begins on the flaps.  Pulled lots of blue plastic, then assembled and drilled all the nose rib/hinge assemblies.  Them drilled those assemblies to the spars.  Fabricated (hacksaw–oh joy!)  the heavy inboard reinforcing angles and the spacer plates that go behind them–all turned out well, so they were clamped and drilled in place.

Next, the bottom skins were set up on the table and the spar assemblies attached, then the skins drilled to the table.  A woodworking project ensued–drilling 54 5/8″ holes in the flat table…followed by a thorough shop-vac session.  Finally, the main ribs were clecoed to the spars, ready for match-drilling in the next work session.

Finished up the ailerons by drilling the brackets to the spars, then bolting them in place.  Those bolts/nuts are hard to get at with even a small open-end wrench, so I once again had to estimate the torque by “feeling” the torque wrench and trying to apply the same force to the bolt.  Spot-primed where the tigthening process had scuffed some primer off, and added torque-seal to all the bolts.  Messed around attaching them to the wing, and left them attached for storage; not all the attach hardware is in place, and none is tight, as the book seems to indicate that they’ll come off again in the process of fitting the bellcrank & pushrods.

The up travel on the aileron is limited by contact in the hinge brackets (later by the physical stop, once installed); down travel seems to be limited by the nose of the aileron contacting the bottom of the top wing skin/gap fairing.  This is the same on both sides and appears to be normal, but I don’t have a tool handy right now to measure the up/down travel to verify things are to spec.

Ailerons are done!