Thursday, January 20, 2022

Aileron CAD Drawings Finished

 Before building the ailerons, and the last 2 wings, I decided to finish modeling the ailerons in CAD.  I felt it was the only way to reconcile inconsistencies in the drawings.  I now have about 20 drawings to use building the ailerons.  I believe a good CAD model, and working drawings, help assure I only make things once.


This is the assembly drawing for the aileron.  My redraw is very close to the factory drawing.  There were no factory drawings of the detailed parts, etc.

The big change from the factory drawing is the location of the hinges.  The inboard hinge is in the factory location, but the spacing between the other hinges each change 1/16".  I think the hinge spacing on the factory aileron drawing makes more sense than the factory wing spar drawing, but I've already made my wing spars so I moved the hinges to agree with the wing spar drawing.

The shape of the aileron control horn changed slightly from the factory drawing to agree with the plane in the WACO Museum.  There were some other little issues with how the ailerons were actually assembled. The factory drawing didn't show the gussets on the ribs, or things like where blocks were needed to attach the ribs, etc.

 I now have a plan that I think will work so I'm excited to get to back to making parts.