Print
Hits: 3170

I was on the road for four of the last five weeks, but I finally got the last bit of scheduled flight testing done on Thursday. I got home about 2:30 AM on Friday. I was too bagged to do any work on Friday, Saturday I spent 6 hours fighting a plumbing leak (it was a classic fiasco with three trips to the hardware store - at least I didn't have to call a plumber), and Sunday was spent trying to figure out how the squirrels are getting above the soffits at the edge of the roof in my house (no success).

Today I had a couple of friends come by to help me fit the wings. I had a near brush with disaster though as one of the jack posts that help up the wings came loose and fell over. Fortunately Jim (one of my helpers) sacrificed his body to save the wing. A bit of blood was shed but bodies heal. Bent aluminum is dead for good. Thanks Jim!

It only took 45 minutes including the time to haul the wings up from the basement. It took a bit of messing about to get the bolt holes at the front spar lined up, but the fit was perfect in the end. I was worried about the distance between the front and rear spars, but the fuselage and wings mated up exactly.

After taking the above picture, I put a stand under the tail wheel spring, and leveled the fuselage. Tomorrow I'll hang a bunch of plumb bobs and make a gazillion measurements to adjust the sweep angle to zero and get the correct incidence angle. Then I can drill the holes for the bolts that attach the rear spar to the fuselage. Then I'll fit the wings, adjust the aileron and flap pushrods, fabricate the fuel lines from tank to fuselage, fit the intersection fairings between wing and fuselage, etc. I'll start the engine installation after I remove the wings.

I'm sure the neighbours must be wondering how I'm going to get this thing out of the garage :-)