Van's RV-9A in Aurora

The Big Picture

The Big Picture
Flying! 8/28/2011

Monday, November 10, 2008

1.5 hrs
Clecoed the tank attach brackets to the left baffle, after figuring out the orientation from the plans. Put the baffle and the tank brackets onto the spar to check the fit. Looks just right, all the holes and flanges are in the right place. Then drilled the brackets using the baffle as a guide.

The plans say to drill the spar side tank attach hole to 3/16s. I don't follow this. Doing so will fix each bracket on the spar. But they're already fixed to the baffle. Put the baffle/brackets back on the spar. From underneath all the holes line up reasonbly well. But it seems better to let the skin attachment set where the brackets will be, and then drill the 3/16" holes. I'll look at it again when the brackets are temp riveted and the tank assembly is on the spar.

Deburred the brackets and the baffle. Stripped the plastic from the baffle. Weird to think this piece of metal will be holding in AvGas.


Then clecoed the baffle to the skin. Counted over 200 clecos in the tank assembly. 500 is not really enough to properly build a wing. Doing both wings at the same time would require close to a thousand, assuming you have them both in the same state with top skins, leading edge, and tank all clecoed together.