Day 9--Yep, our wings fold! Also, flight controls & doors!

Hi everyone, hope you had a great Wednesday.  We sure did!

Today we made sure the wing-fold function of our plane was good.  We also rigged the rudder and ailerons.  Only the elevator left to go!  We also continued work on the engine, and Tracy installed a lot of antennas for our radios.  Here are the pics from today:

This is the right wing back in the folded position.  The Sportsman was conceived from the ground up to have a folding wing for storage or transport.  Many of their customers are from other continents—they have their planes shipped this way.  Notice the grey control rod right by the wing’s leading edge, extending down to the strut.  We put this in during wingfold to help stabilize the leading edge of the wing.

Here’s the right wing back…

…and what the plane looks like with both wings folded.  It folds down to just under 11' wide.  This will come in handy if we have to share hangar space in North Carolina…but we hope to not have to do it routinely.

After the wings were folded, we hooked up the fuel lines.  The lines are flexible enough to accommodate the wingfold with no issues.

Here is the view from inside the fuselage of the fuel lines (one fuel feed line, one vent line) coming into the header tank.

Tracy spent a good portion of the day rigging the tail section flight controls.  We got the rudder completely done; the elevator will have to wait until the control stick is installed.

In order to organize the mess of cables, we…organize them!  Green masking tape is labeled with the cable’s purpose.  We tension the cables with the gold turnbolts you see here.  The blue wires on the turnbolts are the safety to ensure the turnbolt doesn’t back out.

Part of our flight control system is counterweights on the ailerons and elevator.  This is the right aileron counterweight.  The weights help balance the flight control forces in order to reduce stick force required inflight to change the plane’s flight axis.  It gives the plane a great ‘light stick’ feel…so our 4-year-old niece can fly it!

While Tracy was rigging flight controls, I was drilling holes for our door fittings. 

We have a really nice door handle system on the Sportsman, with flush-seating door handles—but the flush fitting has to be set just right.

Here’s the left door with the fittings finished.

In addition to door work, we set the right rear window.  This requires a lot of careful taping and then a simple silicone seal.  It’s a lot like caulking tile.

We also put the engine controls in the dash today!  From left to right:  Throttle, Prop angle, Mixture, Cabin Heat.  This required drilling through a bunch more carbon fiber.

Here are the fittings from the back.  You can see the carbon fiber dust below the fittings.  Tightening the nuts down required special tooling.

After leaving the dash, the controls go right out through the firewall to the engine.  They are all cable systems—no electrical relays or computer gadgetry.  Moving the lever on the dash moves the lever on the engine.

Speaking of engine!  Tracy is putting the alternator on the front.  The alternator is the only belt-driven accessory on the engine.  All other accessories are gear-driven from the accessory case in the back.

Okay, last pic.  Just for grins, we hopped in the backseat of another Sportsman with completed rear-facing back seats (like the ones we are getting).  Easy money—a little tight in the waist, but more legroom than United.  Who wants to go flying?

That's all for today!  Two more full days--then taxi on Saturday!