Flaps (2.5)

2.5 hours

Today I got the RH flap skin cut out.  It took me a little while to figure out the compound angles that the plans called for!

I cut the skin with snips.  I've seen people do it with a band saw or miter saw, but I didn't feel like setting up any power tools.  The flap skins come in 72" pieces, but I'm doing the Sport Acro setup so the longest part of the flaps are only 54.5".  I started by cutting the piece down to 56" long to make it more manageable.  It's a pain to cut through the middle of a sheet with snips, but once you get close to your line it gets real easy to cut accurately.

A full 72" piece of skin material.

Precision is the name of the game!!!  This was my extremely rough cut to within a couple inches of the final length.

Cutting the final size.

Sheet metal is sharp; be careful not to add too much extra character to your workbench!

Once I had the RH skin cut, I started laying out the ribs.  These shortened flaps only get three ribs each, including the drive ribs.  I laid out the holes and drilled the outboard and center ribs, but I noticed the dimension locating the inboard (drive) rib didn't look right.  The dimension didn't quite line up with where the rib was actually depicted in the drawing.  I called Sonex about it, and Kerry said it's probably not correct, but they'll have to get back to me with the correct dimension.  I called it a day at that point!

This 50-23/32" dimension is supposed to locate the drive rib, but it doesn't actually line up with where the rib is.  Chances are that means it isn't right!