With match-drilling and priming complete, I started riveting the aforementioned aileron brackets, gap seals and flap hinge braces onto the wings. The only gotcha on finishing and riveting the brackets together is that some rivets require countersinking to to avoid interference with the aileron as it moves, and it’s easy to countersink the wrong side of the bracket. Ask me how I know.

So after riveting the brackets themselves together *and making sure to insert those spiffy little captured bearings you see in the picture below) it was time to rivet them onto the rear spars. I was able to do some of these by myself, but some of them required a two-person approach. Captain John was able to come up for a few hours and provide some always-appreciated help. Here are the same two brackets featured in the March 7 installment, except now they’re permanently attached. Cool.

The right wing mirrors what you see above. The aileron gap seals go on after the brackets, and John helped here as well…

…and also with the flap hinge braces.

With all that complete, it’s off to the ailerons.

Dang…when the wings are out of the jig, you think you’re almost done with them. Well, friends, that ain’t the case. Next on the agenda is all the stuff that goes on the back of the wings – aileron brackets, aileron gap seals, and flap hinge braces. First came the aileron brackets. These gadgets take a little mental effort to figure out how everything fits together. Fortunately, Van’s included a complete set of drawings in the bracket subkit – they depict the brackets for both wings, and not just the left side as usual for their drawings.

After doing some basic edge-finishing on these things, I clecoed them together then clecoed them to the spar. Wherever possible I tried to do all the match-drilling with the bracket in place, just in case the alignment shifted when the brackets were clecoed to the spar. Here are the left wing’s brackets clecoed in place.
I neglected to take any pictures of the flap brace and aileron seals – sorry. Just use your imagination, or keep reading for pictures in a later installment.

The only remaining work to be done on the cradle was attaching carpet. I moved the entire assembly outside so I wouldn’t gas myself with contact cement, and 1 hour later, the cradle was complete. Our driveway is somewhat sloped, so I was glad I saved the chocks I made for the Mighty Archer. It’s nice to be able to use them on the Mighty RV – or at least a part of it.

Wing cradle complete

And then it was time to take the wings out of the cradle. As with so many parts of this project, I couldn’t have done it without Ellen. I shanghai’d her right after she got home from work, we unfastened all the clamps and bolts holding the wings in place, and moved them to the cradle. The fit was just about perfect.

The wings are out of the jig!

If you’re an RV builder and have gotten this far, you know what a big deal this is. If not, let’s just say that it’s like giving birth to a child – one major component at at time!

I’ve been fighting off a moderate case of the flu, but couldn’t resist finishing the wing cradle. I’m very ready to get the wings out of the jig!

There’s really nothing too complex about constructing the cradle, I followed Vans’ plans and everything worked fine. I won’t bore you with a lot of in-process photos, but here’s an end shot of the cradle before installing the casters that Captain John was kind enough to salvage for me…

Wing cradle frame

…the outboard end with casters installed…

Wing cradle, outboard end

…and the inboard end, similarly equipped. Had to finish here, because it’s Valentines Day and there are gifts to be purchased.

Wing cradle, inboard end

Got the corrugated plastic conduit (purchased from Van’s) installed in both wings. Took a couple of days, and caused a lot of blisters – but it’s done. I decided also to open up some of the rib tooling holes, per Vans’ instructions, to hold additional wiring. Turns out that 7/16″ OD snap bushings (also purchased from Van’s) are the perfect inner diameter (~0.25″) to hold the strobe cable that Whelen sells with their lighting kits, and between enlarged tooling holes and unused 7/16″ holes for the pitot line, I can run strobe cable outside the conduit. That hopefully gives a little electromagnetic separation for reduced stobe noise in the audio system, and also frees up some space in the conduit for additional wiring.

Wing conduit installed

With the conduit installed and the right tank replaced, the wings are now ready to come out of the jig!!!