Lots of things going on the right wing, and starting on the left

TLDR

• Right aileron minus alignment
• Right flap minus alignment
• (Incomplete) Right trailing edge rivets
• (Incomplete) Right landing light lens
• Riveted all left ribs
• Left rear spar

Details

A lot of progress was made in the last couple of days.

Aileron continued

On Thursday I clecoed the aileron together. No match drilling needed and I test fitted rivets, most of which went into the position somewhat easily. However I noticed a bowing on both ends of the aileron tailing edge (aileron tip?). One side bows up and the other side bows down. bowing up on one end

Bowing down on the other end

I sent a questiont to Sling, and they asked me if I clecoed the aileron vetically or if I clecoed them from both sides. I did not do either. In fact I do know if any one clecoed the aileron vertically. But it’ easy to try clecoing from both sides together. So I removed clecos from the outermost ribs, and put clecos back one at a time.

When putting clecos back, I started at the trailling edge. As soon as I add a cleco, the bowing came back. So I decided to match drill and took off about 0.1- 0.2mm from the pre-punched hole, then tried again. The bowing situation became much better. It’s still there but almost not noticible.

For extra caution, I measured the aileron trailing edge using a laser and they are on a straight line

I’m happy about the fix, so I continued clecoing and eventually riveted the aileron together except the leading edge and the countersunk holes as instructed by the KAI. Those will be riveted on the wing to ensure a perfect alignment.

I am not quite ready to hang the aileron to wing yet. Still missing Rib 14 which required to hang the aileron. If I want to install rib 14 I’d have to take the wing off the jib. I don’t want to do that yet. I’d like to keep it on the jig until fuel tanks are complete.

Flap

Flap assembly is similar to aileron. I went through the standard debur and clean, then clecoed everything together to test fit.

The flap did not have bowing issue like Aileron. So the process went by quickly.

The only thing to call out is that dimpling the flap skin was a huge pain. The curved skin proved to be very difficult to reach for dimpler. Setting up the dimpler for the flap skin

Dimpled

Clecoed

All ribs cleaned and marked for dimple

And dimpled

Starting to rivet things together

Flap top

Flap bottom

When installing the hinge on both ends, I used an AN bolt to ensure the holes are lined up.

Here is a completed view. Similar to aileron, I will leave the leading edge line unriveted for later alignment.

Landing light lens

This is the most frustrating part for this week.

I really thought it will be a 15 minute job to simply mock up and check the holes line up. But in practice NONE of the holes on the pixue glass lined up to the aluminum outboard leading edge. Just bending the enforcement strip and figuring out the instruction to enlarge the plastic glass holes took at lesat 1 hour. Then I spent probably another hour trying to line up all holes, but with no success.

Trying to align the glass without enforcement plate first

From the outside

Bending the enforcement plate

More bending

Putting more clecos to force the shape

Just the glass and enforcement

At this point I officially give up. I tried to align many different ways but they just don’t align. I think I will try to line up the holes on enforcement plate and glass, and shout a few rivets. Then if the holes doen’t align between glass and skin, match drill!

Trailing edge rivets

I thought I should fully close the top skin and add the last row of rivets.

Many other builders opted to use AN470-4 solid rivets on the trailing edge in order to provide a clearance between flap and the rivet butts on the trailing edge.

So I clecoed the rivet holes and decided to use my hand riveter to do a trailing run.

Trailing edge clecoed

Then I squeezed a rivet. I am very surprised by how much force I needed to do that. And the end result is very ugly. It even caused a slight wave on the skin.

I immediately drilled out the rivet, and decided hand riveter is not the way to go. I cannot risk damaging the skin with ~400 solid rivets. I think I will have to invest into a pneumatic squeezer. I have not made a purchase yet because I’m still in shock from the price tag.

Left ribs

So the only major item left to do on the right side is the tank. I decided to catch up on the left wing, then do both tanks together.

With that thought, I moved on to rivet left ribs.

Since I already have done this not too long ago, the process is pretty smooth.

That’s a lot of rivets for one rib

Left rear spar

While I was there, I also took care of the rear spar

Left rear spar done