With the ailerons worked out I thought it was time to start the steel parts for the top wing.
More jigs!

I really envy guys building RV`s, their parts come in a box, mine are somewhere in steel sheets.

Anyway, the top wing has a central attach fitting, built up of plates and tubing, with bent up U channel fitting holding it all together.
I made up matching sets of steel plates, and match drilled them. I then bent up some steel u channel fittings.
They had to be bent to match the lower taper on the front and rear spars.
I then made an assembly and welding fixture. This has an aluminum channel base, 2 stub spars, and a channel to hold the fore to aft tube.
I wanted this fixture to be very solid, as the plates and the tube are quite thick and so require lots of heat when welding.
Once all the parts were made, and securely bolted in the fixture they were welded.

Regards the actual welding, all finish TIG welding is done by my good friend Christiano.
Chris is an extremely talented welder, and machinist, who moonlights as a Boeing 777 Captain.

Once the assembly popped out of the jig I put it on the wing, and amazingly it fit perfectly.
With this central fitting now complete I can work outwards in both directions, making the wire tabs and I strut attach fittings.
Once the tabs are all done, I can measure and order for the top wing drag anti drag wires, and get them underway.
I will also work out the wing tip lights, which I am looking forward to.
I shall try not to burn the wing down in the process.

It is interesting to see exacting replicas, or restored antiques, which have modern instruments installed in them.
I know of one fellow who is currently planning on fitting a full glass cockpit to a 1930`s Monocoupe. Ouch!


Well I have been trying to locate all of the original instruments, and have so far managed to find most of them.
The original SS had a mix of Pioneer and US gauge instruments fit, some were quite unique, others fairly generic.
Probably the most unique was the Pioneer Turn and Bank with the "shiny steel ball" 
This was only made for a very short time, as I believe the ball would become magnetised and the compass would always point at the T&B. 
(Not an ideal result in an airplane designed for cross country racing)


I managed to locate this exact T&B
Another fairly hard to find instrument is the Pioneer Bubble face compass. They do come up time to time, but they are getting very expensive. I was lucky to locate this one some time ago.
I have also found the floor mounted second compass which was installed for the trans continental record flights.
I will be interesting to see if they both agree after rebuild, I guess this aircraft needs 2 correction cards.
I have had mixed results to date with the balance of the instruments, I have most of the engine instruments, with the exception of the correct RPM gauge. 
I have also found a few suitable Lunkheimer primers, and the correct Scintilla mag switch.
Regards the flight instruments, again I have some, but not all.
I have the correct pioneer ROC, but I have yet to locate the correct Altimeter and ASI. 


I would really like to hear from anyone who may have the correct ASI, ALT, or Tach and would like to sell or trade them. I do have plenty of other instruments for trade. 


Here is a list of all the instruments as originally fit:


Pioneer floor compass and drift meter
Pioneer Airspeed 50 to 350 mph 175 at bottom dead center
Pioneer turn and bank 3 1/8th No dog houses shiny steel ball
Pioneer rate of climb +/- 2000 fpm 1000' at bottom, 2000' at 3 O'clock
Pioneer tachometer 600-3000 rpm. 1900 rpm at Bottom dead center
Altimeter, insensitive 0 to 15000' setting know at bottom dead center
cylinder head temp 0 to 600 F
US gauge oil temperature 2 1/4 0 to 100 C 50 degrees at top dead center
US gauge oil pressure 2 1/4 0 to 120 psi 60 psi at top dead center
US gauge fuel pressure 2 1/4 0 to 10 psi 5 psi at top dead center
mag switch scintilla vintage


Once I have all the correct instruments I will send them off in one shipment for rebuild.


Based on the available visibility I may as well fit a DVD player in the panel, at least you could watch an inflight movie!

The propeller has now been returned, inspected, assembled, certified and is ready to mount.

Well, it would appear it has been a while since I last posted.
This is not, as some have suggested :) due to a lack of progress, but I have been in that stage of building where a huge amount of work produces almost nothing to look at.

My main progress of late has been the ailerons. It turned out that building the ailerons is almost as big a job as building the wings.
The original aircraft ailerons had a steel tube spar, (similar to the Ryan STA method) with aluminum nose ribs, aluminum main ribs, aluminum rear spar, and trailing edge.
The hinges are permanently attached to the tube, and held in place by steel brackets.

First step in building the ailerons was to work out the actual size and articulation. Since I know the airfoil and chord, as well the hinge points are fixed, I could work out the size of the aileron. I have no idea what the original travel was, but based it on basic practice, max 25 degrees up and down, with no bias as of now.

EAA replica showing the uncovered aileron I had a good idea of how the original was built, based on the EAA replica photos, so this was my guidline, but I did not really know what they were like under the leading edges, so this is more of a guess.

Once I had the rear ribs done, I started on the small leading edge attach ribs. They are also aluminum, and attach to the steel brackets which are welded to the spar. The process for these was the same as the rear ribs, router and forming fixtures. I determined that I would need 12 nose ribs per aileron, 7 LH and 5 RH, so it involved alot of cutting, drilling and forming.

The white material shown is teflon. I was able to get a large section of 1/ 1/4 inch thick teflon block. This stuff drills and machines really well, and holds up well to the forming process. I understand it is extremely expensive, but luckily I did not have to find out!

Once all the aluminum rib sections had been formed, I started on the steel brackets which would mount to the 4130 steel tube spar. I decided the best way to mount the brackets accurately would be via a tube section which slid over the spar, and I would rosette weld the tubes with the bracket attached, as this would minimise heating the ailerons spar, (I was concerned about distortion over the 8 foot length, as it has 3 hinge attach points.

To make the brackets, I cut the tube sections, and also the steel plates. I cut multiple steel plates from .040 4130 sheet by making a cutting block I could run an air nibbler around.
Once the tubes and plates had all been made, for a total of 48 brackets (more on why so many later) I made up a fixture to weld them in LH and RH pairs.

Once all the LH and right hand brackets had been welded, and cleaned up, I could start assembling the ailerons.
I then needed to permanently locate the hinge locations to the rear spar, and I had been concerned about drilling holes directly through the wooden blocks which glue behind each hinge point.
I decided to try and mount the hinges via a "floating bushing" arrangement, which would hopefully self align the attach bolts.
I made up bushings which fit within the hinge, and over the attach bolts. I then milled a square cut through the wooden blocks which was about 1/16th wider and deeper than the bushing.
I cut grooves into the bushing (065 wall) for better glue adhesion, (but realised later where could the bushing possibly go anyway!!)
The theory is that by glueing the block over the bushing and allowing the glue to set with the spar and hinges bolted in position, there will be no misalignment of the three hinge positions. The difficult part is not permanently glueing the aileron to the wing in the process.

But thankfully once the glue dried the bolts slid out (pre waxed) and the hinges released nicely.
The spar now moved freely on the wing, with no friction or binding. I polished the spar tube under each hinge location, but it`s a shame the original did not allow for some sort of bearing, rather than tube on tube.

Next step was to rosette weld the LH and RH attach brackets in place on the spar, which locates the leading edge aluminum brackets, and also locate the rear ribs on an aluminum U channel which I bent up from 032 2024 T3 aluminum.
I cut down some standard trailing edge stock to more closely match the original width.
I ran the trailing edge through a shrinker to shape the section which matches to the wing tip bow.

I made up a separate steel attach bracket, as well as smaller nose and main tip ribs, to match the tip bow area. The aileron tapers in this area both in width and depth. More router jigs, form blocks, drill blocks.

I then fit the 5/8th aluminum tube through the ribs and drilled it to secure.

The next step was to form and mount the leading edge sections. I started by rolling some sections of 020 2024 T3 sheet to get the basic shape, the built a fixture to mount them to the leading edge brackets.
By moving the uprights to different locations I was able to drill and mount each section.
Once all the leading edge sections had been drilled, I removed them and trimmed each to the final size, and refit the aileron to the wing for a final check.

To complete the ailerons to pre cover stage the following needs to be done:
Paint the steel aileron spar black.
Form the curved section of 5/8th aluminum tube at the tip.
Replace all clecos with screws, bolts, and rivets as required.
Add a counterweight in the leading edge section.
*I suspect the original did not have counter balanced ailerons, and with so much weight behind the hinge point why did it not flutter at speed? well the EAA replica may show why. When I moved the aileron on the EAA version it was almost solid, now I imagine that 20 years sitting in a museum does not help, but I noticed the ailerons were mounted directly via bolts through the spar, and this obviously created a great deal of binding friction. If the original was done the same way, then it would have been very hard to move the ailerons, and this may have actually helped to counter act flutter.
Then again, Gen Doolittle had so many other issues associated with flying and racing the SS, maybe he forgot to mention it also had the odd indication of flutter!
My ailerons are almost friction free at this point, so I think it would be critical to balance them at minimum 10% nose down, (110% total weight forward of the hinge point)
I have temporarily hung a steel weight to give an idea of balance, but without all the correct fasteners in place and the clecos removed, as well the fabric and paint estimated, I cannot determine the required weight yet.
Due to the extremely short area ahead of the hinge, it will take a substantial weight to balance them.
I have allowed attach points between the steel leading edge brackets to attach a balance weight tube, and this will be completely hidden.

I will also need to leave the leading edges un rivetted at this stage to allow for the Canadian stage inspection.

The RH aileron is also all ready to assemble, with all parts completed, so this should go together quite quickly compared to the first one!

The February MAAG meeting was at the new restoration center of the Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita, Kansas.  The buildings were recently donated by Spirit AeroSystems.  They have been refurbished by museum volunteers and are now actively in use.

Walt House, museum curator, and his wife Carol hosted a chili feed, which was appropriate given the below freezing temperatures outside.  New officers were elected, with Tim Wiebe our new president, Earl Long is vice-president, and Randy Shields secretary / treasurer.  Potential guests speakers for future MAAG meetings were discussed.  The next meeting will be at the Beaumont Hotel on Saturday, March 10 at 1:00 PM.  See you there!

Here are some shots from the new facility:

Looking and feeling a little more like winter time here in Texas.  As I type this Sunday evening the snow is falling outside.  Glad we made our trip out to see the movie "Red Tails" earlier in the day!

I just finished sorting my sold items for eBay and listed a few more items.  So much aviation memorabilia and only so much room in the closet and garage.  Well, actually I do have the room BUT I do want to pass on some items to others so I can continue to focus in on the items I want.  Like Aero Digest magazines and unique aviation advertisements.  Below are three more from my collection.

This Argo ad is one of the rare ones.  I like the line... "Fly an Argo, for fun or profit. Soon will the plane be a part of you."


Nice one of the Command-Aire.  "For after all, it takes a flight to convince anyone as to the performance - including stability - of a plane."

One of my favorite line of advertisements is from the Berryloid Aircraft Finishes, Berry Brothers company.  Their ads were full color and all feature these very interesting schemes featuring colors from birds.  This one showing the Ruby-throated Humming Bird color scheme.  Wouldn't that be cool to see today!
I am having fun looking thru all these ads.  Still more to come!

It is a cool Saturday afternoon.  It feels a little more like winter today with 20 kt North winds and 36 degree temps.  So I am cleaning up the office, sorting magazines and looking thru a pile of vintage aviation advertisements.  These ads really do take me back to simpler times.  This Monocoupe ad is great. Really?  Cheaper to run than a small car?  Small cars were different back then!


The art work on this Beechcraft Staggerwing ad is really cool.  Wouldn't you like a poster of that art work on your office or hangar wall!?  THAT would be an amazing statement!

I will be posting more vintage aviation advertisements so check back soon.

With a little warmer weather, (55 degrees) Andy applies a coat of epoxy primer to the 120 gear legs and firewall.

With the Continental C-85 removed from the airframe work has begun on a top overhaul. Two cracked cylinders were found, two replacement cylinders and the remaing two cylinders O/H'd. We're replacing the old parts with new pistons, piston pins, rings, valves and o/h'd rocker arms. At the end we'll have a great C-85 for the finished 120. Even with a compression check the cracked cylinders didn't show a problem. The engine would have gone until a failure if we hadn't torn into the C-85. Peace of mind!