Wings

Had an awesome time on Thursday hosting the local EAA chapter meeting (www.eaa33.org)! Working on getting some pics from attendees, unfortunately we were both too busy to pull out the camera. It was a great turnout, had lots of great questions and excellent feedback from everyone. The crowd was a diverse mix of the "regular" chapter bums and a few more scarce chapter members, as well as some friends from outside the chapter (and even aviation) that were interested in coming to see the project. Both flight schools in the Cedar Rapids area were represented, as well as some locally renowned pilots and airplane builders-- even three other RV-10 builders (with one completed and flying)! When we get pics we'll post them here on the blog. Thanks to all who attended! It was an honor and a privilege to show you all the fruits of our labor, and it re-energized us both to keep at it!

After the meeting, we took a couple days to settle, re-organize and re-group. Last night I laid out the parts I'd need to finish putting the R leading edge together, and then this morning we were able to deburr, dimple, prime, and assemble the R leading edge. It went together just like the L side, so I didn't take any extra pictures. I did run into a snag with the landing light assembly though. Because of the way I put the cross-supports in, it is too bulky to insert or remove the bracket through the hole in the leading edge. Although I could put it in there before riveting the leading edge on, it would then be "sealed" in there forever, and I'm not a huge fan of that idea. I need to come up with something else. I'm going to bench that project for a while, but I'll need to re-fabricate some kind of mount for the landing lights later. It will be a great rainy day project!

The only other thing we did was assemble the stall warning switch and assembly, which has a surprisingly high number of tiny parts, including 22 washers, 3 little screws, the microswitch/flapper, and the mounting plates. Again, forgot to take a picture, but here's the diagram:

After this was all assembled and installed, we clecoed both leading edges to the wings, and put everything in the wing rack. We'll rivet them on to the spars soon, but we just want to take a few days to make sure we didn't miss anything and have to take them back off for some reason... once they're on, they're on. The wing rack is working out as an excellent storage solution, and everything is really accessible and mobile.

Looking good! Hopefully, tomorrow we will be able to start on the fuel tanks.