Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Rigging Wings - Spring 1966

Dennis: At this point the wings are ready to rig. The folding mechanisms work as do the controls but the wings are not really attached to the fuselage.  The holes in the fuselage for the wings to attach have not been drilled.  Nor have the holes in the attach fittings on the wings.  One hole in each pair of fittings was drilled.  There is a fitting on the front and back of each spar, 8 fittings in total.  Slots are made in the sides of the fuselage, while building it, to allow the fittings to slide into the fuselage and be pinned to the bulkheads.

The first step was to position the wings square to the fuselage center line and lifted to the correct dihedral.  The board setting on the wing next to the fuselage is the gauge we used to check the dihedral angle.  With the wings positioned the wing root was positioned to set the angle of incidence and the pin holes drilled through the bulkhead and the undrilled fitting.

With the wings attached the flying and landing wires were made to fit.  You have to get them snug and the length such that you can still adjust all the wires as the final tension is set once all the wires are made.  To save cable we looped the cable through the turnbuckle and nicopress sleeves at the fuselage then down to the fitting at the wing spar. 
Once the fitting end was done then you could pull the cable snug with plenty of cable to hold on to while the nicopress is squeezed.  Then the end of the cable is cut and none is wasted.
With the rigging complete the aluminum leading edge was nailed on and the wings were ready for covering.

Time to relax a little.  This thing is really looking like an airplane.

The wing folding hinge pin and the pins for attaching the wings to the fuselage for flight.


Ready for fabric.


A chance to show the neighbors this thing will soon be flying.

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