Joshua's RV-9A Project

A collection of things happening in the shop today.  First thing up, finish the canopy sealing.  The excess Sikaflex was rubbed off the exterior of the top skin and the inside of the rear window and canopy (from gluing the spacer gaps), followed by removal of the rear window spacers and insertion of sealant into those gaps.  Smoothed those over with tongue depressors and all looks good.  Some canopy work remains, of course, but the plexi is in place (which was the big summer goal).

Before the gear can be put on the fuselage, the wings need to be fit, which was skipped earlier in order to get the canopy done in the warmth of summer.  In order to do that , the wings will need to be finished (bottom skins riveted on, which means that they must be wired and plumbed).  Out came bottom wing skins, which needed edge deburring and a few dimples made.  After those were done, the skins were etched for priming along with the rear baggage wall; unfortunately it was too windy to prime until after dark, so that’ll have to wait for another day.

Cleaned up the inside of the wings, which had naturally collected a layer of shop dust and spiderwebs, and set about running the various wires and tubes for the in-wing systems (pitot heat, lights, strobes, AOA, and autopilot).  Everything except the pitot tube was run inside the corrugated conduit which was installed during the wing build.  A hole was drilled in the conduit near the aileron bellcranks, to permit wires to emerge for autopilot and pitot heat; once these wires are in position, some RTV can be used there to prevent any chafing on the conduit edge.  The control module for the heated pitot was installed on the rib near the bellcrank inspection hole, which should allow access to hook up the pitot wires later on.  The pitot tube was secured underneath the aileron bellcrank with an adel clamp to prevent interference or chafing.  All the wiring and tube will terminate at the wing root in connectors, to allow the wings and fuselage to be fully wired in the shop, and easily joined at the airport later on.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Canopy & Frame, Electrical, Skin Panels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.