pretty cool, always enjoy updated photos-do you have a comp. date your shooting for, first flight
A26 progrress
9
The past few weeks we've finally got enough finished up to make it worth while to post some pictures. Also, last week we got some good news about our wheels and tires---------------sorta. The place that has our main wheels (third place we've sent them to) has finally reported back to us that all 4 halves of the two main wheels have passed inspection and should be shipped back to us within the next 2-3wks. This is good because it will allow us to get the plane off of the jacks and mobile on its own wheels so that we can move it around as necessary! Up until now, it's been stuck in the middle of the hanger floor and we would like to re-position it in the hanger to permit us to better use the hanger floor space.
A few weeks ago we discovered that what was expected to be a minor structural repair in the nose wheel well turned out to require considerably more work than expected (so what's new!!!!). As a result, we had to completely remove the nose gear and remove the entire right panel inside the nose wheel well. While we were fitting the right nose wheel door to it's 3 hinges, the rear hinge wouldn't line up to permit inserting the hinge pin because the structure was bent up worse than we realized.
Now we'll have to start all over again to re-install the nose gear assembly.
This is the area where we removed the panel and discovered some damaged structure and a rib that was badly bent/damaged (the damaged rib is removed in this picture, it goes where the rear hinge is).
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Here's the damaged/bent up rib.
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Here's the removed panel on the workbench after it was removed. In order to get out the damaged section of the panel and damaged rib, the panel had to be cut at one end which would require making a splice upon reinstallation.
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Here's the panel and the rib after straightening them and fabricating what's called a doubler for each side of the rib (the damaged rib was sandwiched between two pieces of new fabricated metal).
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This is the rear hinge with the pin inserted after finally getting the structure straightened out. This is also where the damaged rib was.
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A few weeks ago we discovered that what was expected to be a minor structural repair in the nose wheel well turned out to require considerably more work than expected (so what's new!!!!). As a result, we had to completely remove the nose gear and remove the entire right panel inside the nose wheel well. While we were fitting the right nose wheel door to it's 3 hinges, the rear hinge wouldn't line up to permit inserting the hinge pin because the structure was bent up worse than we realized.
Now we'll have to start all over again to re-install the nose gear assembly.
This is the area where we removed the panel and discovered some damaged structure and a rib that was badly bent/damaged (the damaged rib is removed in this picture, it goes where the rear hinge is).
Here's the damaged/bent up rib.
Here's the removed panel on the workbench after it was removed. In order to get out the damaged section of the panel and damaged rib, the panel had to be cut at one end which would require making a splice upon reinstallation.
Here's the panel and the rib after straightening them and fabricating what's called a doubler for each side of the rib (the damaged rib was sandwiched between two pieces of new fabricated metal).
This is the rear hinge with the pin inserted after finally getting the structure straightened out. This is also where the damaged rib was.
