Here we go, I'm back now. Sorry for a little delay, but real life poked it's head in and interrupted me. Actually, yesterday was just a beautiful day at the flying field I stayed a little longer than I really had planned on to get in some extra flying. I had a blast!!! Then we spent the afternoon getting ready for Halloween. Yep, you guessed it, we are one of those families that goes all out for holidays like this. We do up our porch to make it as creepy as possible. This year we've added a fog machine to help out. The way our porch is shaped there is a bunch of trees hiding the porch and overhanging it, so making it scary is really easy. We wanted to get it all set up so when it was dark we could get all the lights and fog machine positioned correctly so they looked good. So now we're all set for Halloween. Great, I can't wait.

Anyway, enough personal stuff and back to the build. In my last post I was at a point building the left wing panel where I could stop building and build the right wing panel. I'm not posting the build/pictures of the right wing panel because it was identical to the left wing, with nothing new or out of the ordinary. Besides, I could build faster when I'm not stopping to take pictures and documenting the build. So if you are following along with me in the build go ahead and build your right wing panel using the same steps as we did for the left wing panel. As with the left wing panel, stop before you mark, cut, and glue in the W1 center rib. I want to do both of these ribs at the same time so that I can make sure the dihedral angle is correct when I glue these two ribs in place. Pictures #1-#4 show both wing panels construction up to this point to give you an idea of what your's should look like (assuming you are building along with me).

A google search for the definition of dihedral came up with this:
What does this mean for us? Well, dihedral is what makes a trainer stable and easy to fly. Dihedral will keep the wings level in flight. This means that if you put the plane into a bank (turn) and then release the control the dihedral in the wing will level the wing. Now don't be mistaken into thinking that this is some miracle “autopilot” to save your plane, because it will not instantly level the wings. But given enough space and time it will return the wings to a level condition and return the plane to level flight. I've put this information in here because I've found that there is a lot of confusion of what dihedral is and what it does. Ok, so now on with the build.

Now armed with a good knowledge of just what exactly dihedral is, it's time to set the dihedral on our build plane. I'm going to back up a bit and repost some information that I put out earlier. I'm going to repost about the dihedral gauge that came with kit. I wasn't pleased with the gauge that came with the kit at all. If you will look at picture #5 you will see the gauge that came with my kit. I've seen other posts here on RCU that show the same thing with the dihedral gauge being off. I was a bit worried that both sides of the gauge had a curve in it. I just didn't think that this would give us a good enough measurement of the dihedral angle of the wing. So I made my own gauge. I'm not going to completely retype my construction of the dihedral gauge, so if you need to make one of you own please refer back to post # 7 in this thread for details on building a new dihedral gauge. Picture #6 shows the new dihedral gauge that I built.

So, let's get started on joining the 2 halves together. Using our new dihedral gauge we need to mark the spars to the angle at which we will set the W1 ribs in place. Put the gauge in position with the 90° angle against the W2 rib and the bottom of the gauge on the bottom sheeting. For right now we only want to mark where we will set them (picture #7), but don't cut anything yet. Now set the W1 rib in place, with the bottom of the rib even with the end of the bottom spars. Since when we built the wing halves we placed the spars in the location with the inside edge of the spars even on the plans, this should be the correct position for the bottom of W1 (don't worry if it was a little bit off, we'll have a little room for adjustment). Now position the top of the W1 rib even with the marks you made on the top main and rear spars (pictures #8 & #9). Now it's time to double check everything (remember what I said at the start? “Measure twice, cut once.” We use it all the time). Turn the wing panel over so we can double check the dihedral angle. Turn the gauge over and place it flat on your building surface. Use the angled side of the gauge and place it against the W1 rib, the rib should match up with the gauge (picture #10). Check the angle along the length of the rib. You last check is going to be at the leading edge end of the W1 rib. Measure the distance from the W2 rib to the W1 rib at the main spar (picture #11), and check that the distance is the same at the leading edge (picture #12). If not, adjust the position of the tip of the W1 rib. Double check everything. Once I was satisfied that the rib is set in the correct position I marked the position of the rib on both spars, the leading edge and the trailing edge. Now that you have the angles set and you're sure where everything will go, go ahead and glue the W1 ribs in place on both wing halves.

While the glue dries on the W1 ribs, this would be a great place to stop this post.

Pictures
1. Both wing halves finished to point where we are ready to join them.
2. Another view of the inner end of the wing halves.
3. The inner edge of the left wing panel.
4. The inner edge of the right wing panel.
5. The dihedral gauge included in the kit. Unusable.
6.New dihedral gauge cut from scrap wood in the kit.
7. Marking the top main spar for the correct dihedral angle.
8. Placing the W1 rib to check position.
9. Placing the W1 rib to check position.
10. Rechecking the dihedral angle
11. Measuring the distance at the main spar
12. Transferring the distance at the leading edge.

Until next time

Ken