Sunday, August 5, 2018

Geez....any more "flapping" and I'm going to be airborne

This week was again all about the flaps.  I finished up the left flap early in the week and the right flap on Saturday.  Both turned out great as you can see in the pictures below.  Sunday was spent working on the control systems (Aileron Actuation).  The system in the 10 is much more complex due to the location of the ailerons in relation to the pilot.  Since the control sticks sit forward of the spar there are a series of bellcranks that get installed to transmit the side to side stick motion aft of the spar.

I really like the new way of doing the trailing edges of the long flaps.  As you have seen in pictures I went out and purchases two 10' square steel tubes that are about 2" on a side.  These are quite heavy and the surface was surprisingly smooth.  I was able to lay both of them on my work bench, use a level to make sure they are "flat" and then assemble and rivet the flaps on top.

As an added bonus the two square steel tubes will be used to build the fuselage cart when it comes time to build one.  :-)

Two items of note in the picture.  The first is you can see the two steel square tubes I mentioned above.  If you look close you can even see where the rivet manufacturer heads where driven on the bar to the right of the photo.  The second and main reason I took the picture is you can see how straight the flap trailing edge came out using this method.

Another view of the finished left flap.  Also notice the portable air conditioner sitting in the background...its been hot here this past couple of weeks!  The garage is on the South West side of the house so the sun beats on it all day long and without full insulation it gets warm!
Both flaps installed on the wings.


Another view of the wings with the flaps installed.  Its getting pretty tight in the work shop right now!
Aileron actuation parts.