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Matt Dralle's RV-8 Project
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Date: 8-6-2009
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Number of Hours: 5.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Wing To Fuselage Fairings - Part 1
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When the wings are joined to the fuselage, there is a large gap left to allow the connection of wires, pitot tubes, fuel lines, and front and rear spar bolts. To hide these gaps, there is an extensive layout of fairings and gap seals to be made. They are attached to the wing using a giant pile of flush head #8 screws which means there are a metric ton of platenuts to be installed as well. The wings had to come off again to facilitate the installation of the platenuts. Once this was done, then wings had to go back on to mark the lower skin holes for drilling, then drilling from the top using a 1/8" bit on a snake attachment. Then these holes were redrilled from the bottom to the #20 size. Once this was done, the wings had to come back off and the remaining platenuts added to the bottom of the wings. These are highlighted in the first two pictures. Craig came over on Monday night and lent me a hand putting the wings on, measuring, drilling, taking the wings back off, and then installing the platenuts on the bottom. Today I put the wings back on and the best news was that all of those lower screw holes lined up perfectly!! A couple of weeks ago I had cut and fit the upper and front gap fairings so they were ready for trial fitting today. I also cut the rubber gasket that makes the joint between the wing fairing and the side of the fuselage. All in all, the whole thing came out very nice.
About a week ago I cut and fit the two fuel vent lines and terminated the fuel pick up lines. These can be seen in the 4th and 6th photos. I still haven't received the replacement fuel level senders, so I wasn't able to close up the tanks with ProSeal this weekend. That will be the very last thing that needs to be done on the wings at this point. Once that's complete, the wings are officially complete and I'll move them into the family room for storage until they get moved out to the hanger for final assembly later in the year.
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Right Wing Lower Fairing Platenuts
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Left Wing Lower Fairing Platenuts - Great Job Craig!
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Right Wing Ready For Fairing Installation
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Copyright © 2008-2024 Matt Dralle. All Rights Reserved.
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