Joshua's RV-9A Project

Hit the major goal for this weekend with a short work session: the wings are attached for the first time.  I was able to use a rolling chair with the back removed as a fixture to handle the wings for joining them to the fuselage; along with a sawhorse and a 2×4, it went pretty easily.  I ground the threads down on my four hardware-store bolts to use as drift pins, tapping them in with a rubber mallet when the holes were closely aligned.  After the first fitting, I had to remove the wings to file a bit off the rear spar stubs to remove a touch of forward sweep.  On the second fitting, the forward sweep has been reduced to less than 1/16″ per side…I could call that good, or choose to pull them again and file the stubs some more.  I’ll also read through Van’s wing attach guide document once more to be sure of what happens next.

Finished up the wing skin riveting tonight (excepting the nutplates for the inspection covers).  I’m clearly not as good of a left-handed riveter, as I managed to put an ugly ding in the right wing bottom skin by slipping off the bar.  Sigh.  Smoothed it out a bit and will either leave it alone or use some filler before paint to level it.

Cleaned the shop up and made room for the wing attach, hopefully coming up this weekend.  The rudder & elevators were removed and stored, then the fuselage was turned into the center of the shop and leveled in both axes.  Measurements were taken, and it appears that there is enough room to fit the wings without having to clear the piles of stuff from the side walls.  The canopy was also removed, as it would hit the garage door opener if opened fully, and having it off will give better access for leaning over to reach the spar bolts.

Next step: read up on what needs to be done prior to the wing attach (so far: trim rear spar stub, trim fuel/vent lines, and some sort of marking for the root fairing holes…what else?)

Continued riveting the right wing bottom skins…got through about 2/3 of the outboard skin before calling it a night to avoid annoying the neighbors.

Finished the left wing bottom outboard skin, and riveted on the right bottom inboard skin.  Clecoed the right outboard in place for the next session.

Started work on riveting the wing bottom skins.  Finished the inboard left, and half of the outboard left, so the left wing is 2/3rds complete.

Shop time has slowed considerably as the beginning-of-the-year crunch hit hard at work; a number of different need-it-now projects for different constituents, and I come home feeling wiped and not really motivated to do anything but nap after dinner.  Hopefully with a concerted effort to head out for at least a bit on most nights, forward motion can be maintained.

Ran another cable in the right wing conduit for the OAT probes, that had been left out in the previous bundle.  This terminates at the middle inspection panel, as I thought that would be better than placing it at the outer panel with the bellcrank and autopilot servo…keeps the wire away from the controls that way.

Put the nutplates and cable wear blocks on the baggage wall halves and set them aside.

Clecoed the inner bottom wing skins to the rear spar.  I need to look up and see what pattern others have found works for riveting the bottom skins.

Worked against the weather today to get the wing skins primed.  While the spray gear was set up, the baggage wall pieces were primed and painted, as well.  Thinning the Rustoleum paint has been hit-and-miss, and today’s batch was a miss…I think it was thinned out too far, and the panels ended up with very heavy coats to get the coverage needed without pinholes…they have a different look than the rest of the interior; for now, we’ll let it go, since there are other inconsistencies, and these panels can easily be pulled out, stripped, and repainted later if it becomes bothersome.

Also finished wiring the internal parts of the wings, trimming the wires to length and crimping on the connectors for the landing lights and the D-sub for the autopilot servo, and terminating the leads to the pitot heat control board.  I later realized that I have not yet run cable for the OAT sensors which will be installed in the right wing to feed the EFIS boxes.  I also epoxied some zip-tie bases to the underside of the seatback bulkhead for holding the headset jack wires, and installed the baggage light strip under there as well, using it’s built-in adhesive strip.

Neighbor Jeff stopped by to check on the progress; it’s been awhile since he’s seen the project.  People who see it now say it looks like an airplane.