With the ribs for the ailerons prepared, time for me to complete and rivet the ribs and the skins to make a complete Aileron.
The instruction manual on the Aileron is still a bit light, so I first had to figure out the order of things. After first doing it wrong and placing the balance tube in first, I realized that this doesn’t allow to place the ribs. So back out with tube, and in with the ribs first.
After I aligned all the ribs I inserted the balance tube and lined it up with the rivet holes. Then I clecoed both sides to start riveting the top and bottom of the skins.
After I was done with riveting the top and bottom of the skins, I took off the clecos from the front and did a test fit on the wings to check the alignment.
Everything looks good, so I clecoed the front line again and started riveting to finish the Aileron.
Time to finish off the external control surfaces with the Aileron. I already primed them a while back, so time to assemble the ribs.
First order of business was sorting the ribs between left and right aileron. Then I checked off all the hardware needed. I already knew from my earlier investigating that the AN bolts for this is in the finishing kit, and the eyebolts are attached to the control rods.
After laying them out, I started riveting the control brackets using the 4.8 mm rivets.
Then for rib 7 I laid out both brackets. The instructions are missing details about this rib, but it was easy to figure out that it uses the remaining 4.8 mm rivets (24 total per the part list, 9 are used for bracket 1, and counting out the holes of bracket 2 and 3, it comes to 24). I also noticed that one bracket slightly overlaps the other, which means that first I had to fully rivet the bracket 3:
With this completed, I then riveted the hinge bracket 2.
The final rib that needs preparation is the assembly of the Eyebolt attachment that controls the movement of the aileron. I put it all together and then torqued it and placed some torque marker on it.
Then I repeated everything for the left Aileron ribs. Next step will be to lay all the ribs into the skins and rivet it closed.
After a couple of weeks of taking some time off active building while life happens and figuring out and planning out some things, I’m back to actively riveting on the airplane.
Time to finish the Pitot Tube after having cut the inspection panel hole and running the wiring a few months ago and lots of learnings about new tools, from the wiring, to flaring the tubes and connecting AN fittings.
I’m using the Garmin GAP 26 heated & regulated Pitot Tube (GAP 26-20). This version automatically controls whether the Pitot Tube needs to be heated using a regulator controller that is mounted next to the Pitot Tube and will only apply heat if needed based on outside temperatures. This basically will allow me to always turn on the Pitot Tube in my panel as part of my standard operating procedures and the regulator will control whether it actually needs to be heated to prevent icing.
After studying the installation manual to make sure I install it correctly, I measured the tube and had to figure out how far I have to cut it in order to fit.
Fitting the Pitot Tube
The Pitot and Angle of Attack (AOA) mast are over 12 inches out of the box, and that won’t fit. I made an initial guess and cut a bit shorter, but I was still too long so I made a series of shortenings and test attaching the fittings until I had it dialed in.
In the end, I had the masts cut down to right around 8 1/2 inches. The Garmin manual says to keep a minimum of 8 inches between the probe and transition to non-metalic tubing, so I had a little bit of margin.
Time for flaring the tubes. The AN fittings use a 37 degree flare, so I got a Rigid 377 flaring tool and a metal tubing cutter to cut the tube. Before doing this on the real Pitot Tube, I made some test flares on a spare tube I bought from Aircraft Spruce.
Make sure you put the AN fittings onto the tube before you do the flaring (I may or may not have forgotten it the first time and cut and redo the flare once).
After I had that dialed in, I did another test fit to get the length correct, accounting for the bend towards the tube and then mounted the fittings.
Final fit and connecting to the nylon tubes inside the wing after having cut the nylon tubes.
Installing the regulator and wiring
With the Pitot Tube itself installed, time to finish the regulator and wiring that controls the heating of the Pitot Tube.
As I explained previously, I plan to mount the regulator unit onto the inspection panel plate, so I did some measuring and orienting to make sure the twist action of the round plate wouldn’t interfere with the wires coming out of the regulator.
Here is the final orientation that I figured out would work best (the screw will mount to the bottom, so the wires will come out the top):
I contemplated between screwing or riveting it on, but I figured that it’s unlikely that it will need to be changed out frequently, so I riveted it onto the plate.
The last part was to create a connection from the regulator to wires I ran through the wings. I used some weatherpack connectors for this, which create a waterproof connection and a solid crimp, similar to the Delphi GT 150 that Midwest Panel uses to connect the wiring harness.
Final completed connection between the regular, the Pitot Tube and the wires running to the center.
Installing the plate to the wing
The last and final part of the installation was to mount the inspection panel plate onto the wing. I did this last to prevent scraping up my arm while I had to do all the mounting inside the wing, since the backing plate that holds the plate in place has a series of pokey corners that love to eat airplane builder blood.
First I lined up the plate with the wing and then did the match drilling of the holes:
The I dimpled the plate and the matching holes on the wing and riveted it in place.
And here is the completed and closed up Pitot Tube and Inspection Plate that holds the regulator:
I had an email conversation with a new future Sling TSi builder over the past two days. While he is waiting for the kit to arrive, there is the hard question of “how to get started”. This question comes up for every new builder, and those that haven’t made up their mind yet, but need some guidance on what it would take to actually get started.
I remember from my own journey of when I got started, that the sheer amount of information out there can be overwhelming and finding some kind of guide-posts can be helpful to make a start.
So I’ve written up a page on my blog on how to get started, from considerations about the workshop, to a few books I found helpful and the large list of tools you’ll need.
I hope this will be helpful to future builders and those evaluating their options.
It’s been a while in the making after a few requests over the past several months, so I finally took the time and do a walkthrough of my Workshop where I’m building my Sling TSi.
Apart from walking through my garage workshop setup and a bunch of the tools I’m using throughout the build, I’ve also given a small update on my current tasks. I’m waiting for the balance tube to finish off the ailerons and I’m currently finishing up the installation of the pitot tube, after running the electrical wiring the other day.
I’ll make a separate post on the installation of the pitot tube when I’m done, but here’s a preview picture of the first fitting to figure out the length of the tubing:
I figured out where I want to run the wires a while back after some tinkering and I am using one of the strut channels for the length of the wing, except the very end at the wing-walk where I had to make one curve down the bottom.
The hardest part was figuring out a good way to come out the bottom where the wing-walk is, since the strut channel doesn’t go through there. On the last picture above, you can see when I finally managed to grip on to where I want the loom to come out of with the help of some duckbill pliers, which were a suggestion from my EAA chapters Technical Counsellor when he visited a few months ago.
Running the wire
With the question of where to run the wire solved, onto actually running the wires.
I am installing the Garmin GAP 26 Heated/Regulated Pitot Tube, which comes with a Regulator that needs to be installed next to the Pitot tube and controls whether the Pitot tube actually needs to be heated.
For this, there are three wires to run – two for the power and one for the discreet output, which integrated into the Garmin G3X Panel to show when the Pitot Tube is actually heated.
I ran the three wires through some braided sleeving to give them some extra protection and make running them through the wire channel easier in one go.
With that out of the way it “just” took a lot of back and forth, more use of the Endoscope and the thin arms of Juliana and repeated shouts of “push, push” and together we managed to run the wire all the way. She cheerfully pronounces “Congratulations, it’s a wire” as it came out the other end.
I was planning to finish to Ailerons, but unfortunately in my final prep, I realized that I received two right side balance tubes instead of a left and a right one. The missing tube should be here sometime next week, so until then, the Ailerons are on pause.
This gave me some time to finally make the big step of cutting out the hole in the Wing for the Pitot inspection panel. I received the heated & regulated Garmin Pitot tube from the Factory and verified that it will fit nicely on the back of the round inspection cover, so I will mount that and I can keep my square inspection panel I designed for some other time.
First I did a lot of measuring and marking based on the plans. Since this is truly a moment of measure-twice, cut-once I measured and re-measured a few times.
With all the marks in place, I started with cutting the pilot holes for the center mark and the cutting head.
The final moment of truth – Time to cut the hole for the inspection panel using my nibbler cutting tool.
I cut the first half of the circle and then reversed the tool since the Pitot tube mast was in the way of completing the cut in one direction.
The cut came out pretty well and I just had to do a little bit of sanding to smooth the edges.
I prepared most parts of the Aileron a good while ago, but I was missing a replacement for one set of ribs that were damaged, so I had put the Ailerons aside and finished the Flaps and Elevator in the meantime.
Now with the Elevator done and the replacement ribs in hand, back to finishing up the Aileron. After a quick inspection and deburring of the new rib I laid out all the parts and got out my small painting booth to prime the ribs.
Once the primer is set I can get onto assembling everything and riveting the Aileron.
We recently had a discussion on the Sling Builders Facebook group about the very visible growth of the Sling Airplane community. With the bigger size, the community is slowly growing beyond the size of a Facebook group. There are also some people do not use Facebook, so a separate forum allows more inclusion for everyone.
So armed with that, we have started a new community organized standalone website and discussion forum that will hopefully help both active builders, people interested in possibly becoming builders and active Sling Pilots to come together and discuss all things Sling.
With most of the preparations out of the way and half of the skins riveted, I took one more session to finishing the Elevator.
There was only one extra part I had to do for 3 of the rivets that were on the bottom edge. In order for them to fit correctly, I had to shorten the rivets so they wouldn’t protrude out.
Aside from that, I just went to town and pulled the rest of the few hundred rivets.
The last part on the riveting side was the front lip.
One of the holes on the lip has to be enlarged to fit a grommet for the wiring for the Elevator Trim Tab. I enlarged the hole using my step drill bit and then installed a snap bushing.
The last part was to install the center balance counterweight. I did some test fitting with this, but the AN3-13A bolts that one of the versions of the manual that I have mentioned are too short, so I’ll check with the factory on the proper length.
With that being said, the general assembly of the Elevator is completed:
Timelapse of the complete construction of the Elevator
With the Elevator construction completed, I’ve also finished my video timelapse of the process:
