Aho Airfield from 1000'

A friend of mine was gracious enough to invite me up in his plane and scope out my airstrip.  Here are pics from the reconn mission.  Talk about a short-field landing!

Door Fit-Up and Final Install

In hindsight, I wish I had waited to paint the doors until I had the perimeter trim strips installed.  As a result, I had to paint and match the trim stripes to the door.  No small effort.   Here are the trim strips being trimmed, drilled and clecoed to the door frame.

The lexan windows needed to be trimmed and holes drilled to match the trim strips.

Here is the door latch assembly installed.  The latch mechanism is actuated by the handle in the center and the rod ends secure the door to the fuse at 3 points.

The painted trim strips were reclecoed in preparation for riveting.

Here are the completed doors.  Note the door upcatch on the wing.  The door handle hangs from this to keep the door open, even in flight, if desired.  The round objects in the windows are air vents that open and capture air from the slip stream.

Wing Tip / LED Light Final Install

Let there be light.  I mounted the combination strobe/nav LED lights to the wing tips, wired them up to the system and then screwed the whole assembly to the wing.

Windshield/Skylight Final Install

This was surely one of the longer project endeavours.  Lots of match drilling of holes and trimming to get this done.  Here are completion pics of the lexan, trim strips, hold-down strips, z-strips and wing cuffs.

I'm not all that thrilled about the wing cuff design.  It was nearly impossible to get a snug fit around the entire piece and not the most elegant item.  I've heard this echoed from fellow builders as well.

On to the doors and hopefully the last of the fabricated and painted pieces.  I can only wish....

Windshield/Skylight Fit-up

In order to fasten the skylight, I needed to first install 3 support ribs onto the fuselage between the wings.  Here are the ribs being attached.  The ribs were snugged up to horizontal objects placed spanning the gap between wing roots, so that the skylight contour would match the wing contour.

Next the one-piece lexan windscreen/skylight was laid up and clecoed to the fuselage spar carry through tube.

Now began the trimming of the lexan so that it would match the boot cowl joggle and attaching the trim strips to hold the lexan down. 

The lexan is held to the fuselage side tubes by metal z-strips, which prevents having to drill into the fuselage tubes.

Lots of drilled holes and clecos are needed for this exercise.  Here is the lexan being drilled to match previously drilled holes in the ribs and then clecoed.

Final task was to fit-up the plastic wing cuffs which trim off the front wind screen corners.

Not shown were 4 trim/hold-down strips which were also match-drilled to the rib holes.  Now that everything is fit-up, moving on to the paint booth....

Wings Final Install

I got the idea for using a sheet rock jack to aid in attaching the wings, so I borrowed one from a contractor friend and duct taped my old wing spars to carry the load.

Worked slick, all I needed was my Dad to help me get the wings on the platform and I could manipulate attachment myself.

In order to the get the wing attach points level, I had to use a saw horse under the fuse and tether the tailwheel to the wall for fear of nosing over.

The spar is attached to the fuse as two locations.  Here is the connection at the leading edge spar.  There is a carry through spar from the fuselage that has a welded Tee on it in which the bolt passes through.  I had to cut off and file the front portion to fit inside the spar.  Once the front holes were aligned, I transfer drilled right through the back side of the spar.

Here is the connection at the trailing edge spar.  Both connections allow the wing to pivot up and down to apply dihedral to the wing.

Here is the front strut going on and is sufficient to hold the wing upright.

I then moved over to the left wing and here I am filing the "Tee-bone" fitting.

Now I've finally got something resembling a complete airplane.  WOOHOO!!  Major Milestone.

Wing washout (or reduction in angle of incidence/attack) of the outboard end of the wing will be completed during rigging. An adjustment is made to a threaded fitting inside the lower end of the aft strut.

Rudder Final Install

The tailfeathers are now complete with the installation of the rudder. 

Here are the tailwheel horns attached to the rudder horns by chains and springs for tailwheel steering.

Rudder cable to pedal connection.

Spring attached from rudder pedal to frame.

Guides installed to frame to align rudder cable.