Wing Ribs #4

I was able to find some time to program the rudder ribs at the end of last week and then I machined the rest of the wing ribs along with the rudder ribs.  It is official, there are no more foam ribs to machine!  This morning I did think of a place on the fuselage that I could add a few pieces of foam, but that is a small task in comparison to the wings.

Today is the first day of Airventure; you should be there not reading this blog!  Unfortunately, I can't go this year but I hope to be back next year.

Number of hours: 1.8
Total hours: 270.8

Wing Ribs #3

I machined the first 33 ribs for the right wing after work yesterday.  I plan to machine the rest today but I need to get the rudder ribs programmed first.  We'll see what happens.

Number of hours: 2.0
Total hours: 269.0

Wing Ribs #2

I finished up the remaining five programs yesterday for the wing ribs.  This afternoon I machined two more sheets of foam in order to make the remaining parts for the left wing.  Labeling takes a lot longer than I expected.  Now I have 48 done and 48 to go!

Number of hours: 2.5
Total hours: 267.0

Wing Ribs #1

I'm sure that I recorded some time for working on the wing ribs previously but I didn't have my post naming convention finalized at the time so this post becomes #1 in the chain.  It is the end of finals week for the summer semester so I figured that I should start building airplane parts again.  I reviewed and reviewed the anti-tab issues over that past few weeks and decided that I am going to rebuild the whole thing.  There were just too many issues for me to fix in ways that would make me feel good about the project.  The "updated" canard sheet showed inconsistent dimensions so I had changed the canard spar from 1120mm to 1108mm which was mistake #1.  Mistake #2 was planning the mounting holes for the hinges but not the control fittings before I started making parts.  My plan is to move the outboard hinges inboard which will require extending a couple of spacers on the spars - easy to do when planned in advance.  I have to place an order with Aircraft Spruce for the wood to cover my mistakes so will move on to some other areas for now.  I machined a template yesterday to check the dimensions for my wing ribs and it came out perfectly so I decided to start getting the wing ribs made.  I spent some time today naming, laying out, programming, and machining the ribs.  There are 48 foam pieces in each wing and they are all unique.  I was able to get 15 of the 96 machined today.  There are 5 ribs that will require a secondary operation to make an undercut of 7.32 degrees.  I need to label each rib as they are machined so I put the orientation of the parts in the sheet along with the names on a drawing (picture shown below).  As before, the ribs are made from 32" X 48" X 1" Divinycell foam.

Number of hours: 3.5
Total hours: 264.5