BAF - Flaps

E-mail:

bill (at) repucci (dot) com

Flap construction

Caution - Man running (with) power tools

E The Flaps are built much like the ailerons, just longer. A LOT longer and that means more holes to drill, deburr, dimple, and rivet. This is the right flap assembled for the first time. (6/8/04)

F Here is the left lap all weighted down for match drilling. The white bags on top of the 2x4's are 25 lb bags of double 00 buck shot. (6/8/04)

E Here is the bottom of the left flap w/o the bottom skin. As you will see in the next picture, riveting the bottom skins in place is a pain. (7/17/04)

F Driving the rivets that attach the bottom skin to the bottom of the flap spar is a pain because you have to reach in with the bucking bar and can't see what you are doing. Aviation blind rivets, otherwise known as pull or pop-rivets are used to attach the bottom skins to the ribs. These are used here because with the top skin on you can't get a bucking bar in there to use driven rivets. (7/17/04)

E Once again, you have to lay on the floor to do some match drilling. This is the right flap. (6/13/04)f

F Did I mention the RV-9 has a lot of flap? Here I am with the newly completed left flap. (7/17/04)

As of 7/24/04, both flaps are complete and waiting for me to finish the rest of the airplane. The good news is that the trailing edges on both are as straight as the ailerons, which is VERY straight. For those other RV builders out there, I did not glue the wedge in place. I squeezed the rivets using a flush rivet set that had an angle ground into both sides to match the trailing edge. This worked very well. For details, check out the aileron page.