Since it was cloudy and I wasn't needed at the parachute club I had to find something to do. That something was make a start on the wing tip lights. I have more photos than I can show here, but I've included the interesting ones. I decided that I would fit the light to a metal plate, and then fit the metal plate to the wing tip. This would then allow me to remove the whole plate for future maintenance. The plate is made out of .025 since that is all I have. I may order some .040 later on a re-make them if I feel that the .025 is too flimsy, but it seems ok. The light will get fitted with #6 screws and nyloc nuts (both of which I need to order) to the cover plate, and then the plate will get fitted to the wing tip with #4 stainless screws into nutplates (since I have them already). First of all, I got a piece of cardboard and made myself a rough template of the recess in the wing tip. This was then transferred to a piece of ply which was cut down to the size that the metal plate was to be, which was around 4-5mm less than the recess so it wouldn't touch the lens anywhere. This was probably an unnecessary step, but I didn't want to cut metal at this point since I was still in the middle of forming my design (I'm a 'visual' designer). I then marked the cutout which was 20mm less than the cover plate template. This flange is where the #4 nutplates would be fitted. Next I decided to go to the metal and cut out the cover plate from some .025 left over from the wing walk doublers (I hope I don't need it later!!). I worked out where the nutplates needed to be in a highly scientific way which I won't detail here, and this was drilled and cleco'd in place ..... .....
