Working while I wait

The last rib on the right wing has been replaced and varnished with the wingtip bow installed for the last time. The pulley guards still need paint, but then they'll be done as well. The wings have both been hauled to the ceiling and extra support-ropes were added just in case one of the straps decides to give out for some reason.

Fuselage tubing has been ordered, but Aircraft Spruce is short on stock so I'll have to wait a few weeks before they can ship it out to me. In the meantime I started making fittings for the fuselage. All of the landing gear and strut brackets are cut, as are the control horns for the elevator and rudder.

I made up some 1" washers out of .090 4130 sheet which will probably get welded to the appropriate gear fittings tomorrow. After that I can stow the fittings away while I start work on the fuselage jig.

Cheynne is going to try to sell off some of the mechanics tools she's inherited to make a little more room in the garage. I'll hold off on building my jig table until then.

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Drag wires

Progress on the airplane has been very limited as of late. It has, however, been made. After a long episode of researching and calculating I have found drag wires. Not the drag wires the plans call for, but still. The plans want 1050 alloy steel wire to be threaded with a #6-40 thread and retained with what are essentially spoke-nipples from motorcycles wheels. The aircraft rated nipples are about $7 each and I need 24 of them. Spoke nipples are 20 to 50 cents each. We'll, I wasn't going to spend $170 on bolts, but $12 seemed reasonable, so I ordered a bunch of spoke nipples. I had intended to match the thread of the nipples with my drag wire stock, but they are just irregular enough that I couldn't find a thread that matched and it seemed like sending wires out to have the correct thread rolled on wouldn't be worth the effort. So, despite having bought my spoke nipples, I abandoned the idea of using them. Enter the Baby Great Lakes. I researched drag wires and alt...

Where to start?

So, where does one start when building an airplane? The answer changes from person to person. The kernel of inspiration to build an airplane was there, as I mentioned in the last post, from the time and effort it took to build the Spirit. But what plane? I looked at the trusty Pietenpol, but the size of the cockpits and the useful load left me wanting for something more. I looked at the Double Eagle and the Airbike, but my girlfriend didn't like how open they were. Finally, I made a list of what I thought I wanted in an airplane, reproduced here. -High wing monoplane (biplanes mean building 4 wings) -Taildragger w/tailwheel -Fabric wings and stab. -Aluminum tube or wood construction, maybe steel -Inexpensive to build -Inexpensive to operate -Single carb engine. -Aircooled? -Two seats -Mostly enclosed cockpit (not a breezy) -minimal systems -AOA/reserve lift guage -Amphibious a plus ...

Fittings. How fitting.

Not much has happened on the Ace this year. The winter was long and spring has been very cold, so I spent a long time waiting for the garage to warm up. Now that there's a little heat down there I've been making some headway on the next step of my wing build: fittings. I copied the parts off the plans into CAD and then printed them onto cardstock to use as patterns when laying fittings out on the steel stock. First I tackled the brackets that will hold the pulleys for the aileron cables. I have a lot of extra material in case I had to remake these. The next step was to bend up my fittings. There is one fitting that mounts to the forward side of the strut which gets bent to a 90° angle. The fitting which mounts to the aft side of the spar gets bent at about an 85° angle. I forget the exact number, but don't feel like looking it up at the moment. Next I cut out the aileron control horns. My Harbor Freight porta-band chucked into my vice works well for cutting th...

Aviation Coming Eventually

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