On Last Page of Section 17

I put 3 more hours in today and got myself onto the last page of section 17. The wingtip is almost finished.


I started on the bottom which was easily accessible as the wing was still bottom up. Riveting the little strip and the outboard aft rib and the grip handle into place was quickly done.


Way too quickly it seemed as now I had to determine how to proceed. The next steps would have required to turn the wing bottom down to get easy access to the top where more parts were to be riveted on. I tried to do it alone but decided after some time that it would be too dangerous to damage the wing in the process. On the other hand I didn't want to call it a day after less than 30 minutes of work that I had put in so far and wait for my wife to come home and help me turning the wing.
The only way to continue seemed to work head's up. So, I tried to cleco on the parts.


and the upper (or lower) part of it as well.


That wasn't too hard! So I went on riveting while lying on my back, using a mover's dolly as a rest for my back and to insulate me from the icy ground,



Now it felt like my muscles started to cramp because of the unusual load and the awkward working position I was in but I kept pushing on. This was the hardest part, now the edge ribs were going on and I could work from the side not fully lying on my back.


The rear spar had to get trimmed a little bit to allow the rear rib to slide over it. The manual said this was ok to do.

That one was quickly riveted on and I continued with the forward edge rib which had to get heavily fluted to match the curve of the wingtip. After three attempts that one looked fine and riveting was just as easy. The only thing that took some time was to determine if the forward edge rib went OVER the rear edge rib or UNDER it. Unfortunately, the manuals are not clear on that and the drawings are so small that it is hard to determine it. I finally decided to put the forward one over the rear one as it seemed to look better and made more sense from an aerodynamic standpoint. I don't think it would matter a lot, one way or the other.


FInally a shot from the lower (upper) side.



And all that without turning the wing. Now, let's see how my back feels tomorrow. I expect some delayed but nevertheless obvious objection... I hope it won't be too bad as I am flying to Phoenix in the early morning to meet Denny Myrick to update his Dynon to version 5.4 and also to get a ride in the -12.

I'm really excited!