Flaps and Fuel Tanks HOBBS 377.5 hrs

Last week I acquired a new toy, an Apple iPad. My laptop had grown pretty old and decided to go TU so I figured, lets buy an iPad. I had heard that they were great in the cockpit, so that made it a lot easier to justify. I am still feeling out its capabilities, especially for flying, but so far it is a pretty amazing device...its a "game changer" in my opinion. So, what does that have to do with building an RV you ask? Well, I spent all of my weeknights playing with it so I didnt spend as much time working on the plane. Anyhow, I will keep you updated as to what I think about it for aviation purposes. I can tell you the free weather apps that I have downloaded are quite amazing...flight planning just got much more convenient.

This weekend, I still logged 7.5 hrs in the shop working on the fuel tanks and flaps. Yes, the fuel tanks...gosh these things will never end! :) I think I am ready to seal up the left one...attach the baffle and the access cover and then pressure test it. The right tank should follow closely behind.

Started the left flap construction. The instructions say, this is the easiest assembly on the wing. So far, I would agree with that statement. Not much to it, especially at this stage of the game...your building skills should be getting fairly advanced by now. A control surface like this is now a piece of cake...much different than when I first gazed at the elevator and stumbled through that.

Here is my fuel tank access hole, and also the place where I mistakenly installed 10-32 nut plates instead of the correct 8-32 nut plates. Click on the next pic for more detail.

Unless I am missing something obvious, this is a little confusing. Dont go by the pictorial representation of the nut plate like I did. The picture looks just like a 10-32 nut plate, but the callout correctly says 8-32 (K1000-08). I am leaving them as is, the access plate will be plenty secure on my plane. ;) So, thats why I had to order new nut plates from Van's...those buggers are about 0.50/ea so it wasnt a trivial mistake as I ended up ordering $17 worth of nut plates. doh!

And here is where all of those 10-32 nut plates went...left fuel tank attach brackets (Z brackets)

Here is a quick shot of my aileron trailing edge. I just wanted to note, I am not too proud to put pull rivets in the last hole. To try and drive a solid rivet in this small space is just silly in my opinion. I will use my filler to make that appear to be a solid rivet later on. Nobody will ever know...at least if they didnt read my blog they wouldnt. :)

Another shot of the aileron. A quick note, my policy in the shop is, torque it and immediately apply torque seal...that way you know later upon visual inspection...if its got torque seal, it indeed has been torqued...no questions asked, no mistakes.

The left flap getting assembled for the first time

Van's say you can build a jig to hold your flaps if you want, but its not necessary. Well, I thought...heck I have the materials laying around (those end pieces are on old desk that I disassembled) and it took me about 15 minutes to slap it together. Voila! Glad I did, it really helps when assembling the structure and certainly will be helpful when riveting it solo.

The continuous hinge (piano hinge) match drilled to the flap, this will attach to the wing structure later

Fabricating the attach bracket, you have to put a 6.3 deg bend in this bugger in a later step. I went too far and had to bend it back slightly. Beware, 6.3 degs is not much of an angle. You dont want to bend these things back and forth too much...it will work harden the material and it could crack, now...or worse, later.

Hole layout...