Right aileron complete

September 5, 2011 – The drought is over!!! Well, maybe not really, but I haven’t worked on the airplane in more than a month. Between the heat this summer, and taking both of my boys to college, I haven’t done anything. But this weekend a cold front came through. It was 67 degrees this morning, so I got after it.

Lenora had offered to help me rivet the aileron skins to the spars. I tried previously, but didn’t have much luck getting around the lower skin to do a good job bucking by myself. So we got both upper rows of fasteners done today.

I then installed the fasteners for the end ribs at the nose ribs and the top skins.

The instructions then have you weigh down the aileron to keep it straight while the rest of the fasteners are installed. Since I don’t have shot bags or anything heavy enough that wouldn’t damage the aileron, I decided to go this route:

I riveted the tops of the end ribs, the nose ribs, installed the blind fasteners on the leading edge counterbalance, and in the skin to lower spar. When the aileron was all closed up, I removed the clamps and the board. The aileron looks pretty straight to me!

I installed the hinge brackets.

I am temporarily storing the aileron in its place on the wing. I’ll go back later to figure out the washer and spacer configuration. I did sight along the leading edge of the aileron and the wing top skin trailing edge. I have a nice even gap all the way across.

Time: 5:55