April 1999

I have sent a note to Europa to see if they have any recommendation's on increasing the hinge area, so while I wait for their response I decided to get the other aileron cores out. These required the same work of gluing in the incorrect cuts, making a new cut and adding the extra length. My afternoon in the workshop resulted in getting this completed, the cores joined and the blocks bonded to my bench. I added some peel ply and cut some cloth, ready for the first skin lay up.

I spent a couple of hours and got my first skin on. This work is becoming fairly straightforward now. It seems to be easy to produce a "text book" like finish every time. This aileron will be the last bit of blue foam construction we will have to build. Save sample # 50 &51, 23c @ 52% rh.

 I have included a couple of photos to show how I go about getting the cloth aligned properly. What I do is to lay the cloth over the cores before I micro slurry. I get it set up at 30 degrees and then weight it down with my straight edge. I then fold it back as you can see in the second photo and cover it with a cloth. This makes the positioning quite easy. Once I have put some micro slurry and resin on, it's a simple matter of folding the cloth back, and it will be perfectly aligned.

The other trick I have come up with is to use a roller cutter for trimming the edges. I use a piece of timber under the cloth and run across the cloth with the cutter. This gives a really quick and accurate cut.

I cleaned up, the edges and inspected the surfaces. Everything looked good and I set up the jig blocks for the other surface. I use a straight edge to try and reduce the mismatch between the two jig halves. I use some poster board card to get both halves of the blocks sitting level. Once I am happy I glue the blocks to the bench and weigh them down with lead shot bags.

I removed it from the jig blocks and set it up on the other side blocks, glued it in with 5 minute epoxy. Once it was set, I cut off the TE joggle and sanded it off ready for the next lay up.

I cut cloth and did second side lay up. This is a small lay up and went quickly. Saved sample #52, 26c @ 48% rh.

I cut out the foam for the hinge area with a sharp knife. For some reason or other it did not go as well as the previous aileron. There was no real harm done, I was just left with more sanding.

I spent more time sanding on this aileron. I sanded the hinge area to 30mm deep with a radius of 5 mm at the bottom. This was deeper than the other side because although the hinge fitted on the previous aileron, it was a little on the tight side. I cut all of the bid ready for the lay up. I will be putting on one extra layer of cloth along the full length of the aileron to reduce to possibility of the hinges cracking.

We did the hinge lay up today. This was 4 hours of work from start to finish. I had Jenny helping on this task, I really would not like to be doing this by myself. I pre wetted out my bid for each alternate layer, putting on the other layers dry. I used a length of cling wrap on the hinge area to stop the cloth sticking to that surface while I lay it onto the LE first. We then slowly remove the cling wrap as we work the cloth right down into the bottom of the hinge area. This seems to give us a lot of control over the wet cloth as we work with it. 

After I get the cloth to stick to the LE I push it down into the bottom of the grove. I then slowly slide the cling wrap out, a section at a time (A) and then push the cloth firmly into the bottom of the grove (B).

I think, after doing the hinge lay up I must have felt like a bit of a break from the Europa. I ventured down to the workshop and trimmed up the lay up. I did a close inspection of the lay up and I didn't have any bubbles to be concerned about. I did a test fit of the hinges and I had plenty of room.

I did a bit of flying today, mostly pattern work and landings. I am still searching for that "elusive" perfect landing! I cut some cloth and did the tip close out. I cut a vee between the glass and the blue foam and filled it with flox. I use syringes from Aircraft Spruce, and this makes a nice job of it. I saved sample #53, 25c @ 48% rh.

I did the root lay up today, much the same way as the last one. I roughed up the aluminum part and gave it a good coating of Alodine. I made a little jig out of quarter tube and wire to ensure that the drive pin was aligned the same as the other aileron.

I cut the flange back and cleaned up. The job came out okay, but not as good as the other aileron. I ended up with a small bubble on the aluminum bracket. I think I will drill a small hole and fill it using a syringe.

A friend of mine suggested I had the perfect hobby. If the weather was bad I built my airplane, if it was good I flew it my C150. I guess he was right, but what I did not think of is that I ended up with two aircraft to work on. I worked on the C150 door today. The lock on the passenger's side does not work so I looked into that. Unfortunately it turned out that it was broken and could not be repaired. I did end up taking the door trim home and putting a layer of bid on the inside to repair a split.

The only Europa construction that got done was to cut out the area ready to fit the hinge.

I set the hinges up on the straight edge and drilled out the holes. I counter sunk holes on the hinge area ready for riveting.

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I did not do any building tonight, but I did put the C150 door panel back on. 

No building tonight, EAA Chapter 18 meeting.

I tried to rivet the hinge on tonight, but I found that the inner ones would not go in far enough. The rivet head would touch the underneath surface before the base of the rivet would sit into the counter sinking. I solved the problem by shortening the rivets by 1mm and taking a little bit off the base of the pin. I set it all up, floxed into place and popped the rivets. I was a little bit worried about trimming the rivets, but it worked out well, I still had plenty of rivet material on the underneath.

Well there was no building this weekend. A couple of months ago a number of friends and I decided we would fly to Dayton on this weekend. It was the local EAA chapters fly in, and there is a really great Air Force museum located close to the city. In all, 18 aircraft with 54 people flew down for the weekend. The weather cooperated nicely for the 270nm. trip on both days. I flew our C150, and as usual was the first to leave and last to arrive. I had to suffer through reports of RV's cruising at 148 knots, I think the only boasting I could do was I used 5.9 gallons an hour. I can't wait to fly my Europa on a trip like that and be able to boast about 4 gallons an hour and keep up with the crowd!!