Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Ailerons

We had originally planned to fly to KPDC today with some friends to grab a steak dinner (because why not?) but the weather wasn't playing nice with us. I think we could have made it there in a pinch but it's not quite as glamorous or fun when you're up there dodging thunderstorms and dealing with bumpy air and gusty winds. So... into the airplane factory we went for a short day today doing some pretty repetitive work... we finished drilling and deburring the counterweight assemblies for both the R and L sides, which involved clecoing the leading edge skin to the spar and nose ribs. Kind of a cool-looking little piece:


Other than that though, I jumped in to help Sarah with the 32 small stiffeners she had cut out from the provided aluminum angle strips. She finished filing/deburring the edges while I final-drilled, deburred, and dimpled the 224 holes (7 per stiffener). Next step I believe is to do the same thing to the four aileron skins and the spars; and then do another round of priming. Then, basically all that's left is to assemble it all! Should only be a couple more days left on the ailerons, at most, I think. Problem is, our schedule is filling up these next couple days so I'm not sure if we'll get much building in until maybe Sunday. We'll see...