Aileron Drilling

I’m still on my detour, working on the ailerons while I wait for the weather to get warm enough to prime all of the wing ribs and get back to assembling the main parts of the wings.

The next task for the ailerons was to final drill the stiffeners to the aileron skins. This is exactly the same process that was used on the rudder and the elevators:

I then went back to the plans and through my inventory of parts to familiarize myself with the rest of the aileron construction. There’s a Service Bulletin (SB-16-03-28) for cracks that can form in the wing rear spar at the point where the inboard aileron hinge bracket attaches to the spar. My kit comes with the Service Bulletin parts as a separate sub-kit. The main plans have not yet been updated with the changes in the SB. To make sure I don’t overlook this work, I made changes on the plans page to ensure I use the right parts when the time comes. The SB kit provides a couple of reinforcement plates that are attached on the forward side of the rear spar. These are very thick and strong. Here are the notations I put on my plans page:

On to the aileron skeletons. There are reinforcement plates (A-408) that need to be fabricated and drilled to match the holes on each end of the aileron spars. The hinge brackets are also match drilled to the ends of the spars:

The end-ribs are then also final drilled to the aileron spars. There are two ribs on each edge of the ailerons: a trailing rib and a leading-edge rib. These provide the shape of the main and leading-edge skins of the aileron, which are separate parts.