Good Night Irene

Progress slowed over the weekend with the arrival of Irene.  Only lost a few shingles though.

Here is a picture of Hood Field with 5 of the 10 inches of rain we had Saturday.  This was at 10 AM.

In the meantime work continued on the center section.  We have added a few more skins.

The goal is to install it on the struts before the match drilling takes place.  Once on the struts the four corners are established.  Otherwise it is like a pretzel sitting on the sawhorses.

I worked on the end fittings for the forward diagonal struts.  This was pretty straightforward.  The rivets used are CherryMax.

The brakets are supposed to be .750 wide to accept the end fitting but they have a little spring back at the extremity and are only .737 or so wide at the end.

I checked with Dennis at Lockwood and he said this is not unusual but would send me some different ones if I wanted.  He said no problem splaying them open so I am satisfied.  This is one of the few things that has not been perfect in the kit.  The quality is pretty amazing to me.  I got one to go in without to much bother and I only need to assemble it now for the trial fitting and then once more for final installation.

The Big W

Continuing on with the center section.  I now have all of the major bits assembled with clecos.  The next step is to mount it to the struts of the fuselage before attaching the skins and then drilling them.

Here are the additional pieces I added since the last post.

The left hand engine mount attached to the rear spar:

A shear clip for the middle of the rear spar:

The rest of the spar with the right engine mount:

A doubler attached to one of the side bay stiffeners:

We had to install the struts for the center section.  The rear struts form a big W, just like in A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

And the front stuts:

This is going the long way just to make sure the fit is good before drilling the skins.  It also will add to the difficulty of it with everything so high.  I'll probably just drill a few additional holes since there are already enough pre-drilled ones but I have seen one Aircam have issues with this.

Center Section Start

Moving on to the center section.  There is still a little work to do on the vertical fin but I want to work on the fir of the root fairing before I take the skins off.

The center section of the Aircam is a hodge-podge design.  It has a built up front spar carry through with round tubes to adapt to the wing spars which are round.  The rear spar is round tubes connected by two brackets.  There is also some conventional sheetmetal construction.  Let's start with the spar carry through.

This is another temporarily assembled structure from the kit.  Lockwood builds it in a jig so the dihedral is correct and to also locate the outer spar attach tube bushings.  I have drilled these to #30 only except in the middle which are #20 for Cherry Max rivets.  The #30 holes will be upsized later to #8!!  I do not have clecoes this large, at least not yet.

Here are the tube extensions.  You rivet on brackets for the ribs before installing them.  There are four ribs for this section. These are machined and anodized, they have a radius in them to match the curve of the tube.

Here I have slid one side in place and attached the three bolts

Here it is complete for this stage.

The aileron control bracket attaches to the middle of the spar on the aft side.

Now the the four front sections of the ribs get stiffeners attached.  Here is one.

And I built up four aileron pulley brackets that attach to the stiffeners.

Now its time to put these on the front spar.

In doing this there are some additional sheet metal brackets plus another machined bracket that will get riveted to the spar.

There is a lot going on here!

I could now add the stiffeners that connect the rear part of these ribs.

Some brackets that attach to these bits.

And finally an overall shot.

You can see another set of lateral stiffeners in the rear as well as the rear sections of the ribs.  The rear spar will attach to these ribs with brackets which I have not installed yet.

Here is the rear spar where the brackets join the tubes in the center followed by an overall shot

Of course all is just clecoed together for drilling to size.  It will all come apart for deburring and painting before final assembly.

More Tanks

Continued with the fuel tanks this weekend.  Managed to get everything drilled except countersinking the left side fuel sender access outlet.

Also put the vertical fin back on for some match drilling.

The point of this is to match drill the rear spar here:

And the forward spar attach fitting inboard side here:

Forgot to show the fuel tank attach fittings:

These attach holes have been countersunk too.

Managed to get the new engine mounts on the Acro Sport.  That only took three hours and 4 guys.  DynaFocal mounts are a pain.

Also did a little flying above the clouds on Saturday:

The iPhone always make the prop look strange.  This was at 5500 ft. with Chris.  The air was smooth and cool up there.

Hope to tidy up the fin and the tanks this week and on to the center section.  Stay tuned!!

Let's Puts Some Holes In The Fuel Tank!

Drilled out one tank tonight.  Arm tired after that.  For a small tank there sure are a lot of holes.

I'll drill the other one out Friday night and then deburr.  Don and I are going to the South Oaks cook out tomorrow night.  After that - on to the center section.

More Progress on the V Fin

Finished drilling the vertical fin, all holes are now to size.  I have to mount it to the fuselage to fit the root fairing before I take the skins off.

I also riveted the bearing housing to the elevator bearing support brackets

These will attach to the V Fin rear spar.

On to the fuel tanks.  The Aircam has two completely separate fuel systems, one for each engine.  I layed  out all of the part and drilled the fuel cap bosses.

That's Monte and his son Bobby in the background.  Monte is prepping him to soslo on his 16th birthday.

One odd thing on the Aircam is the plans show a 90 degree elbow on the inside of the tank at the fuel drain location.  This puts the fuel drain higher than the pickup for the engine.  This looks like a way to trap water to me so I am thinking bout cutting that fitting flush with the inside of the tank.  Here are the plans.

I plan to continue with the tanks this week.  The fun job is when you rivet them together with the Pro Seal.  A very messy job.

Back In The Game

Vacation is over, Oshkosh was the usual blast.  Time to get moving on the Aircam.  Monday and Tuesday were spent cleaning up the shop and putting away tools.  I have decided it is time to do the vertical stabilizer and the center section.  I will leave riveting the fuselage inside skins until after I have installed most of the systems.

So tonight I drilled holes.  Have not done this in a while but managed to drill the #40s on one side and Cleco.  My hand was tired after that so I mowed the runway after that.  Here are a couple of pics:

The vertical fin on its side.  It is over seven feet long!

The spar has some stiffeners as  you get toward the root end.  It is quite thick and I had to be careful not to push to hard and risk separating the individual pieces.

Need to stop at Lowe's tomorrow to get some bubble wrap so I can flip it and continue the other side.