Wings Forum

rgmullins · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 93 Location: Cincinnati

Thought I would post a few pics of my baby. I decided to put on a metal leading edge and permanently attach the tips

b1x4nqb · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Orwigsburg, PA

Looks real nice! I never thought of it before, but I guess you don't use the false ribs with the leading edge wrap? Larger tanks also.... Very cool.

Paul, PA

Wes · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 8:58 am Post subject: Nice Wing Work

RG,
Nice work on the wings, - the permanent tips will look real smooth.
I have yet to start on my wings.
I plan to also do the leading edge wrap with alum' sheet. What material did you use? I saw in a prev post they used .020 in.
What alloy/temp? 6061 -T6?
Any issues with the trailing edge of the wrap, i.e. fabric stress/protrusions?

Keep up the good work, gonna' be "showy" airplane.

Wes

Kit #95

stede52 · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 261 Location: Carnation, WA

Very nice, I'll be covering soon myself
Steve

scubarider · Joined: 24 Dec 2006 Posts: 287 Location: Cleveland, GA

Looks really nice. Would you ever have to remove your wing tips? I had to due to wiring. Just wondering.
Dennis

Uwe Jens · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject:

Hi
The wings look really nice; but I do not know how the aluminum leading edge works on the wings flexibility due that these wings are built with two aluminum tubing spars ( making them very flexible) and not with only one central I beam which is more rigid. I hope that with stress your aluminum leading edge will not separate from the wood ribs.
Good luck,
Uwe/.

rgmullins · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 93 Location: Cincinnati

Paul - We still used the false ribs, we just shorted and reshaped them. After the leading edge was glued on we wedged and glued them into place and it gave it a nice solid feel.

Wes - I ordered the leading edge material from Aircraft Spruce (they're getting a lot of business from me lately)
Part # 03-30800. It's .016 and 2024T3. No problems at all attaching the fabric. We curled the trailing edge of it down sightly so it wouldn't have a hard edge.

Dennis - We debated whether we would ever need to remove the tips again and decided we probably wouldn't. I have wing tip lights and ran the wire before gluing the fabric on, and epoxied the nuts to the inside so that we can remove them if they should need repair. If we ever ground looped it would make repair more difficult but we decided we wanted to make the wing as clean as we can.

Uwe - I talked to Troy about it before we built it. There are several that have been built that way (and the factory built one that way but it was destroyed in a crash) I haven't heard of any problems. but you bring up a good point and we considered it when we were building it. We used the structural epoxy and pop rivets (not in the leading edge though) to fasten them down so if flexing is an issue I think what we will see will be some buckling in the aluminum, it's only .016 thick. But hopefully that won't happen. I'll have to try to keep the G forces below 4 or 5... :-)

Dave Krall CFII SEL SES · Joined: 14 Mar 2007 Posts: 357 Location: Seattle WA

Nice looking wings and wingtip lights. Where are you running the strobe cables and other light wires and how will you attach them? Holes through the ribs?

rgmullins · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 93 Location: Cincinnati

Finally have the painting almost done. Had a fit with dust but I'm really liking the polyfiber finish..