Fuselage

Yesterday the wings went on without too much bother. Two of us did it in about 2 hours. That is to the stage where we had 4 of the large bolts in each wing and one of the outer AN4 that take the load.
I made one mistake. I have aileron push rod tube draft seals. They are on an ally frame on the outside of the fuselage with screws from the inside. The frame was upside down so the wing had to come far enough off to let us rotate the frame around the tube.
I had forgotten, since the trial rigging, just how close the wings and fuse come on the -4. Don't overestimate the space.

I guess the picture is of two ikons together; an RV4 and a Supercub. Double click as usual if you want a better picture.


It is a slow job putting all the bolts in. I have spent nearly two days at it now. I am stiff and bruised but the job is 95% done. I have put the bolts near the pilot seat cushion with the heads aft to save the cushion. The rest I have tried to arrange neatly, bearing in mind which way is easiest to do them up. VANS have overspeced all the AN3 bolts involved. There are some AN3-16 which could all be replaced by AN3-15, and similarly some AN3-17 which could be replaced by -16. As a result, as you can see there are plenty of washers involved. If you use the VANS supplied bolts be sure you don't tighten the bolts down to the end of the thread.
A couple of the NAS bolts were very hard to get in. There is no rhyme or reason as to why. Use plenty of grease. I also spilt quite a bit of ACF-50. It is not the worst thing to spill but I will have to get the degreaser out in due course.
I seem to be short of a couple of bolts and some washers. I will make a note and come back to this.


Here is another view of the centre section.

Much of my wiring comes through the wing spar beside the control column. I have yet to fix it up and out of the way. Once this is done there is room for both without interference.

In this picture you can just see the aileron draft boots. They are orange balloon fabric.

For completeness I have added a picture of the flap system and wing leveller.

The relay in the bottom left of the picture signals when the flaps are less than about 95% retracted.



And here is how it all looks from where the pilot sits.