Category Archives: Wings

Wing’s Off

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Time: 10 Hours 

This weekend was another big milestone – I removed the wings! These won’t go back on until the paint is done. To prep for this task I had just a few items to take care of. The first was to drill all the holes that hold the wing/fuselage flashing on to a #19 for the eventual screws that will go there. Then I removed the flaps and ailerons to make the wings a little lighter for lifting. 


Then with a couple of hits to the temporary bolts that were holding the wing spar along with Glenn moving the tip of the wing up and down to take pressure off the bolts they slid right out. We then lifted them off the fuselage and put them back in their cradle for the remainder of work needed on them. 

Wow that was fun and I have so much more room to work now! One of the avionics I will have in my instrument panel is the Garmin GTN-625. This is a certified GPS navigation source and is the little brother to the 650. The only difference is that it doesn’t have the COM/NAV portion like the 650. All I wanted was the GPS enroute and approach capabilities. I have two Dynon radios and I will never do an ILS or VOR approach in this plane since RVAV/GPS approaches are all over the place.  Plus I didn’t want to put any mor antanaes on the plane. I won’t buy this unit until I’m all done but I did want to wire it now. There are three things that I needed for this. First is the tray that the unit will actually slide into and supports the unit. The second is the backplate which houses all the connections and the third is the connector kit that allows you to run wires to the backplate. I got these from JA Air in KARR where I fly out of. They had the tray but had to order the rest for me.


 So I moved on to attaching the tray to the instrument panel. It will be connected with four screws that will go into the brackets that SteinAir gave me when they cut the panel. I drill them for four #6 nutplates for the screws to go into. 

I squeezed a few rivets and the nutplates were done. 

I test fit the tray to make sure all was well and it looked great. 


Now that the panel was all done I was able to paint it for its final install. When the paint was dry I screwed in the Garmin tray and put them both back in the RV. 


I then decided to do a little wiring one was to remove the ARINC harness that I had originally built and run from the module up to the panel area. The reason is that SteinAir recommended sheilded wire which I didn’t use. 

So I rebuilt it with the correct wires, 22g two conductor wires. One for the TX set of wires, one for the RX set of wires and one for the serial line. While I was up messing with the wires behind the panel I decided to clean up the two Dynon screen harnesses. I have one for the 10″ and one for the 7″ screen. There were a few sets of wires that I wasn’t sure I would use or not so I just left it all hanging for the time being. They leave wires for contactor inputs if you so desire, all mine will be going through the VP-X so I won’t need them. The other set was for another serial input and those won’t be needed either. The last wire was for dimming capability from an outside dimmer control that I wasn’t going to use. So I gathered up all those wires and made a tight coil and zip tied them to just hang behind the screens after the install. I also zip tied the rest of the harness wires to clean them up leaving the GPS antanae wires out. I decided to terminate these wires in a connector so that when I finally decide where I will put the antanae I can just run the wires to the pane and plug it in. 


Now all that needs to be connected to these harnesses is the backup battery’s and the USB ports. It always seems that when I’m working on a task I see other items in that area that I want to work on. This was the same here as I was standing on the left side of the fuselage by the panel. When I installed the ELT remote head with tiny screws and nuts a while ago I didn’t think that I would ever have to remove that this after the RV was finished, but I found out that those part has a battery in it (I thought the one in the speaker housing was it).  The possibility of getting those little nuts in place in the blind would be impossible. So as I sat there looking at he back of the panel I had an idea. These 4-40 screws are small and don’t need to be very tight. I decided to grab some 1/8″ thick bar and cut two small peices, one for the left side of the ELT opening and one for the right. I drilled and tapped them using the ELT holes and used some of my T-88 structural adhesive to bond them to the back of the panel side peice. Now to remove the ELT remote I will just have to unscrew the screws from the front and not worry about nuts on the back. 

I was still in the mood for wiring, and not sanding fiberglass, so another task that I had been putting off was the roll trim motor wiring and install I will have pitch trim which is in the left elevator and roll trim which is in the floor just by my left hip as I sit down. There are five small 26g wires for each of the trim servos. Two are for the movement wither in or out based on which wire is getting power. The other three are for the trim indication, mine will be a widget on the Dynon screen that gets produced by the EMS(Engine Monitoring System) which has a bunch of blank inputs that you can use for items like this. To connect these tiny wires as they get to the servos I’m using RC aircraft/car micro connectors that Glenn used on his. The current that these carry is really low so these connectors work great. The down side is that they just have little prongs that stick out that you have to solder the wires on to. This meant that I would have to solder inside the fuselage bent over the edge. Glenn’s soldering clamps worked well for this. First up was to cut and drill the push tube based of the dimensions in the plans. This rod has two large cotter pins that act as points for springs attach to. Then the springs attach to the bottom of the control column tube. This rod slides into a bushing on one end and connects to the servo on the other with a pin. Then the rod moves left and right as needed but the springs allow the pilot to override the trim or just to use the controls when the trim isn’t working. 

I then test fit it all in place to make sure the movement was not binding. 

Then it was off to getting the connectors soldered. I made sure to put on shrink tube for the whole wire run, the shrink tube label and the small shrink tube to cover the individual soldered wires. 

I made sure to line the wires up on the servo so they matched the wire run and soldered them. 

With the wires all soldered I made the connection from the rod to the servo. 

More Fiberglass Work

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Time: 8 Hours

I have been slowly working on all for the fiberglass parts on the wing tips and VS/HS. The forward peices just ahead of the elevators and rudder are proving to be a pain to fill. Getting into the areas between the flanges is a littl tough. I’m using a larg popsicle stick with sandpaper glued to it to get into these spaces. These areas will probably take a couple of try’s to get just right. Man do I hate sanding fiberglass! On a side note I did get my AeroLED taillight from Aircraft Spruce this week. I was planning on using a watertight connector for this light since it will be in the bottom of the rudder and will be exposed to water from time to time. The problem was that the area in the aft end of the rudder bottom fiberglass gets pretty tight before the flair for the light. The issue with that is this peice will be riveted on and I will have to slide the cable in from the front and make it back to the hole. With a large connector it was impossibe. So I just used a small 5 place Molex connector that is easy to slide into place. 


I will figure a way to waterproof it after the connection between the light and harness is made. Maybe a long peice of shrink tube that covers the connector will do the job. While I was letting some epoxy cure for the next day I moved on to a little task on the flaps electrical connection. There is a side panel on the left side of the passenger seat that will cover up the flap motor. This creates a space behind it that I was able to install a two place terminal block to allow easy connection of the flap wires. This block will be screwed down to the floor that will eventually be permently riveted. I located the perfect spot and drilled for two #8 screws and riveted a couple of nutplates for them. 


I removed the terminal block and crimped the terminals on the two wires for the flap motor and the two wires from the VP-X.  Then I connected them for continued use of the flaps without the floor. 

I finished up a few fiberglass filling jobs as well. 


One fill job is on the bottom of the rudder where the fiberglass cap goes around the rudder cable attach horns. 

I have a lot of filling and sanding to go but I’m just going at it one step at a time. A few more standings on the wing tips and I’ll be able to call them done and be able to remove the wings. 

Fiberglass Work Days

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Time: 10 Hours

Since I’m at the stage to remove the wings from the fuselage I decided to tackle all of the fiberglass work that I can.  The rest of the aluminum work on the wings has to be finished after the wings are off and it’s easier to work on the fiberglass finish work now. To add some strength to the bottom of the wing tips I put just one foam rod in and fiberglassed it in like I did the tops. 

I’m really impressed with just how much rigidity these add and still leave plenty of room to work in if needed. I then moved on to the rudder fiberglass tips. There is one at the top and one at the bottom. I started with the bottom as it is the more difficult one as it requires a notch to go around the tailspring attach horns. 

I used my Dremel tool to cut out the notch and trial fit it. 

Onice I had the notch cut and trimmed so that the cap was even with the skin I marked a line 5/16″ from the edge to represent the river line. I used that line to drill a forward and aft hole to hold the cap in place. 

Now that I had the cap I place I put the rudder back on the vertical stabilizer to check the fitment. 

I was real happy with the alignment and fit. So I drilled the remaining holes on both sides. I then cleaned up the very aft end where the taillight will eventually be. I had bought an adapter ring from Cleaveland Tool’s a year ago or so. This allows you easily screw a taillight in with its threaded holes and not need a nut on the back of the screw as this is a very tight space to work. I needed the aft end to be flat and square so that the ring sat flat. 

The ring has six holes for blind rivets and two threaded holes for the taillight. The wiring for the taillight will run inside the cap and need to exit close to where it enters the VS. Since the rudder will be moving left and right I decided to make a racetrack shaped hole in the forward portion of the cap to allow the rudder to move left and right with the least amount of cable movement. 

I used a thin grommet to line the edge so it won’t chaff after I cut the hole. 

I stopped there with the bottom cap since I want to get my taillight and the connectors I will be using before I permanent rivet it in place. I then moved to the top cap which is much easier. 

I cleaned up the cap after drilling all the holes with sand paper. I also countersunk the skin for the blind rivets as well. 

I used the T-88 adhesive to help bond the cap and riveted it in place. I decided to fiberglass the seam on these as well so I mixed up some epoxy and micro-fill and applied a good layer on both sides. 

After that cured overnight I sanded it down to a nice smooth transition and put the rudder back on the VS. There is a forward portion cap that tops the VS and needs to be trimmed to match the rudder. 

Here you can see how much needed to be trimmed. 

So I made some marks that parallel the rudder cap and cut off the extra portion. 

It’s not required but I makes for a lot cleaner look to close up the open end of the cap. The easiest way is to cut a peice of balsa wood sheet to the shape and epoxy it in leaving it a 1/16″ short of flush. Then you can fill the rest with epoxy and micro to sand smooth. 

I did a couple of fiberglass lay ups in the inside of the cap to secure the balsa to the cap. I also filled in the forward side of the balsa with epoxy and micro as a rough start.  After that cured overnight I worked the forward edge until I got a nice clean gap between it and the forward side of the rudder. Once that was good I riveted it in place using more of the T-88 adhesive. 


I will come back to this cap after it cures to fill the seam and work the center section a little to better match the rudder cap with its alignment. While had the epoxy and micro mixed up I also added some to the leading edge of the wing tips where they didn’t quite line up with the aluminum. It was cured as well so I sanded those to a good shape. 

Now that the wingtips are getting closer to being done I riveted the tip ribs in place using more of the T-88 adhesive. 

So I will need to fill in the VS cap to make a clean look and work the horizontal stabilizer caps, they need trimming like the VS, to match up with the elevators. Other than being really dusty I don’t mind the fiberglass work. Maybe it just cause it’s a new skill, or lack there of, that makes it ok. Progress that’s all that maters to me, I’m getting close to being able to remove the wings!

Wingtip Hinge Stops

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Time: 3 Hours

I got in the shop today after my weekend breakfast with Glenn for a couple hours. Today’s task was to make the wingtip hinge pin stops. These are made from a scrap plastic cutting board of all things. This is a pilot designed mod that has been used by many builders so I’m just copying their ideas. The idea is to cut the hinge pins so that they are a length that will slide into a chunk of the cutting board. Then that chunk can be screwed into the wingtip rib with a nutplate. Sounds weird but photos will help explain it. First up was to match drill the rib to the wingtip like I did on the right side. 

 Then I drilled for and riveted a not played 2 inches from the tooling hole. I’ve been shaped a piece of the cutting board two inches long into the shape of the rib.
 I clecko’ed the rib in place and reinstalled the wing tip on the wing as well as remove the aileron jigs so I could move them. 
 I removed the block and drilled tow #40 holes in the forward end of the block for the hinge pens to slide into. I marked the depth on the outside edge and return the block to the rib to mark the hinge pins to cut. After the pins were cut I return them to the wingtip and slid the block over each of the pin ends and screwed the block to the rib.

 What an awesome way to secure these hinge pins, I think they look great!

Elevator Tips Riveted

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Time: 4 Hours

I had a little time in the shop to secure the elevator tips to the elevator. First up was to countersink the fiberglass to accept the dimples of the elevator skins. I then dimpled all the holes except the four holes that had two overlapping skins where I countersunk them. 

I then cleaned up the elevator edges as well as sand and scuff the finerglass especially the flanges that would be riveted. Based on some other builders I planned on using structural adhesive to help bond the fiberglass to the elevators along with rivets. 

I mixed up this adhesive and applied it to the top and bottoms flanges and slid the tip in place.  These tips are riveted with blind rivets since there is no access to buck solid rivets. 

I plan on closing up the forward ends of the tips where they go over the counterweight. So I mixed up some epoxy and flox to start this process and fill in the gaps around the weight. 

When theses are cured I will cut some fiberglass that will lay over the from and get epoxied in place for structure. I will then be able to sand and shape this end and add balloons as needed to shape them. To finish up the day I grabbed my orbital sander and some 220 grit paper to work on the left wing tip gap. 

Thats where I called it a dusty day.