Andrew's RV-7 Build Log

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Well, Joe and I haven’t been able to find a good time to come over and get the last of the wing rivets done, so for tonight, I’m going to move on to something else. Even though I could go back and continue working on the left wing, I think instead I’m going to start on the ailerons and flaps. Instead of just the right aileron and right flap, though, I’ll just go ahead and build both sets.

First, the ailerons. Here’s a plans change picture, for your amusement.

The ailerons!

First up, let’s start collecting some parts. Here are the aileron spars.

One withe blue plastic, and one after I'd removed it.

Then, I gathered up some nose ribs, the hinge brackets, and the spar reinforcement plates.

Aileron parts.

Following the directions (although I’ve skipped the stiffener-fabricating part), I lined the edges of the reinforcement plates up with the ends of the spars, and centered them vertically. They seemed to go only one way (they’re a little rectangular).

(Does that sound a little ominous? Keep reading.)

After some matchdrilling, I stepped back for another picture.

All four reinforcement plates drilled.

Then you stick the hinge brackets on, and drill up to a #12 for some AN3- bolts.

Looking good. Everything's aligned.

Then, I took everything apart, and noticed that my edge distance was not so great. After rechecking the orientation of the plates, I realized that I had initially lined them up correctly, just to assume that they were the wrong way (it didn’t look like they would fit). I flipped them 90° and drilled.

I found an awesome online tool to do this for me. Hilarious, right?

I held them up the correct way, and sure enough, there’s room. Bummer.

Just so I could end on a high note, I found the aileron ribs, and pulled the blue plastic off.

Some aileron ribs.

I clecoed them to the spar, along with the nose ribs, so that I could see something that kind of resembled ailerons.

Yup, these look like ailerons.

1.0 hour.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2011 at 3:11 pm and is filed under Wings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.