Brief Description: Drill and cleco nose ribs, root flap drive support
After going to the Geneseo Air Show yesterday it got me thinking how much fun it would be to fly my own Bearhawk in for the event loaded with 4 of us and our chairs, lunch and big cooler. Serious motivation…
First thing I did was recheck the left wing for square and level. Then I ran the string for the left wing nose ribs and drilled and clecoed all the nose ribs into place. That took a while. Then I assemble the flap drive and aileron support frame on both wings. I was thinking that after priming the flap torque tube might be difficult to run back in through the bearings. It actually wasn't bad. I just polished the tube with a fine scotch brite pad.
My next step was to make the root flap drive support. I had written in my notes to make them like Erbman's but at the last minute I decided to make the ones like Eric did. Erbman's look strong with more work and Eric's look simple to make and plenty adequate for the job.
I was trying to cut the .040 T3 with hand shears and it wasn't easy. I pulled out the HF throatless shears and these worked great for the job. I drilled the corners and bent the flange and the tabs on a 36" brake. The bends were cracking so I had to make a new one with a better relief hole. I ended up doing 3 of these and all 3 were cracking on at least one bend. The 3rd one wasn't as bad so I was getting close but I decided to go back to plan A and make the ones like Erbman.
I'm sure the next one would have been okay but I changed my mind in the process and lost some time.
