Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Chapter 14 - Center section Spar - Part 3

Happy new year everyone.

The last few weeks I have managed to work steadily on completing the center spar. Today the spar is complete (except for 2 2-1/2" access holes).

The plans call for the spar to be permanently installed at this time. I think however that I will not do that. The EZ takes up a lot of shop space with the center spar and canard installed. If I leave the center spar off and remove the canard, I will have plenty of room in the shop to complete the last of the large layups on the big work table, the wings. I believe that after the wings are complete, I can disassemble the large work table, or cut it down to take less space while I complete the spar installation and build the wing strakes.

Here are some photos of the spar completion:


Here is the center spar after the spar cap layups and the aft bid exterior layups. The 4 aluminium plates are floxed into place. 3 plies UNI glass are layed up over each of these hard points.

After the UIN layups are cured, the center access hole is cut and 3 plies BID is layed up over the foward face of the spar. This hole will allow access to the inside of the center spar for wing attach nuts. This space will also be a baggage compartment behind the passenger seat.

Here is another view of the completed spar.

And here is the spar temporarily installed into the fuselage.