Airdrome Aeroplanes Nieuport 17

[bookmaker]

Frank, yes, it will be trailer friendly. I already have the trailer base and plan to build up a cover framework like Rick and Phil's with metal frame and fabric cover. Mine will be much taller of course.

I have already trailered it once - to last year's Dawn Patrol Rendezvous. That was exposed however and I don't want to do that on a continuing basis.

Dale

[bookmaker]

Frank, I thought I posted a reply here, but must not have saved it.

Yes, it will be trailered. One thing I found about building a full size is it requires a MUCH larger trailer, especially in height. My bird will stand about 8' tall from the ground to the top of the forward cabane struts.

Dale

[bookmaker]

Over the last couple weeks (in addition to being sick) I reworked the 4 wing panels to replace the landing/flying wire tangs with longer ones with a 90 degree twist. This was done to hopefully improve the ease of assembly and disassembly. The rework however, I had to cut all of the drag/ antidrug cables, remove the bolts with the tangs, replace the tangs, then replace all the cables.

Here is a photo of one wing panel with the new tangs.



Now I am waiting on the welding shop to weld up the stainless steel wing connector tubes so that I can start mating the wings to the fuselage.

Dale

[bookmaker]

Another modification to the basic kit is to use round stainless steel tubing for the wing connectors rather than the flat steel plates provided. Since the wings have sweep, and the lower wings have sweep and dihedral, the connectors must be cut at the proper angles and welded.

The upper wing is easy, just a 3 1/2 degree angle cut on each side. The lower wings are a little more difficult as each side has a 3 1/2 degree sweep and a 2 1/2 degree dihedral. I could have set this in my chop saw, but my wife being a college math professor and son a computer hardware and software engineer, they took on the vector analysis to come up with one combined angle cut. After quite a while, they came up with a combined angle of a little over 4 degrees. This now has to be divided in half since the lower wings plug into a straight carry through.

Here are photos of the cut parts and welding jigs I made up:

My son Rob helping cut the tubing. Lots of sparks



Lower wing jig. Smiley face is to help me remember which ends mate up.



Parts in jigs - they should work!



Since my welding sucks, and I don't even want to consider welding stainless steel, I took the parts to the local college for their welding school to help out. They have a really top notch school and instructor.

Here is the result



And finally the test fit - YES! (ignore the finger in the photos)





I have since angled the root ends of the spar tubes to fit up to the welds closer. I am now working on jigging up the carry through tubes so they will not move up and down while I remove the bolts to insert the connectors. Once it is all lined up, I will put a rivet in the carry through and connectors, then remove the assembly to match drill the connectors for the attachment bolts.

Dale

[rwanttaja]

Over the last couple weeks (in addition to being sick) I reworked the 4 wing panels to replace the landing/flying wire tangs with longer ones with a 90 degree twist. This was done to hopefully improve the ease of assembly and disassembly. The rework however, I had to cut all of the drag/ antidrug cables, remove the bolts with the tangs, replace the tangs, then replace all the cables.

One problem with this approach is that any vibration in the wires in the vertical plane gets transmitted directly to the metal of the tangs. When the tangs are vertical instead of horizontal, the wires just "hinge" around the clevis pin of the turnbuckle or shackle. Of course, they don't handle HORIZONTAL vibration as well....

Did you clear this with the Aerodrome folks?

I suspect you'll be OK if you attach the turnbuckles at these tangs. Fly Babies have horizontal tangs for their wing bracing, and there are a few cases of fatigue failure when people have used solid bracing wires instead of the cables/turnbuckles. The turnbuckle eye acts as another "hinge" point, helping to absorb the vibration.

One Fly Baby builder using solid bracing wires chrome-plated his tangs (a no-no, it weakens the metal). The chrome plating did capture the flexing the horizontal tang was exposed to:

In the Fly Baby world, we recommend changing the flying wire attach tangs to vertical:


Ron Wanttaja

[bookmaker]

Ron, yes, this was discussed with Robert at Airdrome. I understand the concern you refer to. The opposite end of the tangs are bolted somewhat "loosely" between the spar and the compression tube. I say loosely, as the bolts are not tight enough to deform the spar tube. I think this may lessen some of the shock you refer to. And yes, there will be turnbuckles at most of the tangs.

Just curious, does the Fly Baby use flat wing bracing or round cable?

Dale

[rwanttaja]

Ron, yes, this was discussed with Robert at Airdrome. I understand the concern you refer to. The opposite end of the tangs are bolted somewhat "loosely" between the spar and the compression tube. I say loosely, as the bolts are not tight enough to deform the spar tube. I think this may lessen some of the shock you refer to. And yes, there will be turnbuckles at most of the tangs.

If Aerodrome buys off on it, you should be fine.

Just curious, does the Fly Baby use flat wing bracing or round cable?

Per-plans Fly Babies use 1/8" standard aviation cable and AN135 turnbuckles. Some folks have used round solid tie rods or solid streamline tie rods. Several accidents have occurred due to metal fatigue (in the tangs) using these systems, so I recommend against them.

The Fly Baby monoplanes have a "harder" time than a biplane since the landing and bracing wires don't directly oppose each other, thus it's more difficult to achieve tension. More information on Fly Baby monoplane wing bracing can be found at:

http://www.bowersflybaby.com/safety/bracing.htm

Of course, one option is to build your Fly Baby as a biplane....



Ron Wanttaja

[bookmaker]

Thanks for the heads up. I will definitely keep an eye on that area. Having a flying wire tang break would be ugly.

Dale

[bookmaker]

Looking back I see I posted some photos twice. Oh, well. Going as slow as I am it's hard to keep track.

One thing I have not posted is that I now have the motor mount assembly. I sent Robert at Airdrome the dimensions earlier in the summer and received it a few weeks ago. Although I am not is a real hurry to mount the engine, (Bad juju without weight on the tail) I do plan to clean up the forward end of the fuselage gussets to start mounting the engine mount bolts and firewall shortly.

Dale

[bookmaker]

Jigging the carry through tubes so that I can insert the connector with the bolt removed from the carry through. They need to move front and back for alignment, but can't move up and down while fitting the wing spars. I will leave one side bolted while working on the other to keep the carry throughs from moving back and forth.






I will jig up the fuselage then the wing outer ends for mating up with the fuselage. The lower will be a hoot getting the connectors in the right position, but my wife and I did it once as a test, so it can be done.

Engine mount



Dale