Watertight Hinge Cavities

[jjacky]

Hi All I'm finishing up the flaps and ailerons and I'm concerned about water washing off the wing and filling up the ailerons and flaps as I cruise through a gully washer (unintentionally but it will happen). The immediate remedy is some 1/16 trailing edge weep holes but I wonder if you had any ideas on sealing up the hinge and bell crank cavities?

[scubarider2]

I learned my lesson when I had the plane parked outside and down came the rain. Filled up both sides. So got home and drilled the weep holes. No more problems.
Dennis

[Johnny C!]

Do we need weep holes drilled trailing
edges of the wings, flaps & airlerons?
Every bay?

Thanks!

John

[Wes]

Jay,
I "Just" couldn't bear to think of my flaps and aileron L.E.s open to the rain, snow, sleet, bird guts, etc., so I went thru a lot of anxiety to figure out how to seal them up (especially after reading Dennis' story of flaps/ailerons full of rain).
I came up with an epoxy/glass layup piece that I trimed to fit each hinge well. Here's the mold and a ruff cut layup:

Mold for Hinge Closeouts.jpg

Next I had to figure out how to close that awful hole where the flap return spring penetrates the leading edge. I ended up with a horn added in place of the return spring bracket on top of the flap spar. Here is the added horn and it's composite fabric plate ready for covering: You can see the trimmed epoxy/glass closeout piece on the bottom.

Flap Return Horn_Fabric Plate.jpg

I did this before the guys came up with the nifty return-cable-pulley idea, so my cabble runs from the horn thru the top of the wing to the return spring. This is what it looks like before final assembly:

Flap Return Cable_Spring.jpg

It is now all covered and ready to fly, but I'll have to open up a couple of my inspection holes if I need to adjust or change the return spring.

This is the only pic I have of the almost finished installation (shaky cameraman):

Flap return.jpg

Wes