Closing Left Wing Bottom

With the right wing closed, we now know tho “trick” and can do the left wing much faster. Starting on the inboard skin, working our way to the tip.

On the inboard side of the wings are several ribs that support the “wing walk”. These ribs are so close to each other that it is hard to get your hands (with bucking bar) in there. From the trailing edge until half way you have to work from the main spar side.

After that, the lighting holes in the ribs are big enough to get your arms through and work from the inboard side.
The outboard skin of the left wing contains the pitot tube and angle of attack sensor. I look the liberty, to buy a nice pitot tube, but that requires some extra rivets to attach it.

Because the doubler plate is on the other side of the main spar web than the skin, you cannot rivet the pitot tube assembly before attaching the skin. You have to rivet it all together.

Also I added some custom stiffeners to strengthen the construction and one of the stiffeners must be attached to the rib. Maybe overkill, but the price of the pitot tube convinced me to take precautions.

The outboard skin is wider and has only one access hole, hence you have to “work” with it to rivet the tight places. As you can see here, the skin is very flexible. Of course there is a limit to it and with folding the skins in the empennage and the ailerons, you kind of get the feeling how far you can stress the aluminum.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 322/0

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