Georgia, our on-site QC inspector, has noted several errors in Van’s plans. Unfortunately, she can’t tell us where they are.

Georgia, our on-site QC inspector, has noted several errors in Van’s plans. Unfortunately, she can’t tell us where they are. I’ve been playing with the ExperimentalAero DRDT-2…I think it’s gonna be a worthwhile investment. As I learn more about it, I’ll post information here.

The flange strips are finished, and I started fitting them in the spar channels. Progress is slow, too many things going on in the evenings and on the weekends. I played with the spar channel alignment while clecoing, because the the channels seem to be offset by about 1/32″. Is this significant? I don’t know. If you’re reading this and have some insight into how well the prepunched parts line up, I’d appreciate some feedback.

And so it begins…after two months of intermittent shop work, floor painting, bench building and part counting, I finally generated some metal shavings! Got the HS spar flange strips filed so that they fit snugly against the spar channels’ curved corners.

There were some rather deep milling/clamping marks and scratches in the flange strips when they arrived with the kit. Of course, the plans say that you should remove all scratches, no matter how small. Just to understand what the real tolerances are, I called Van’s. Their words – if you can drag a fingernail across the scratch and your nail doesn’t get stuck in it, it’s ok.