Today’s work session began by finishing up the
riveting of the F-1215 seat rib that had the autopilot servo’s doubler plate
added to the flaperon mixer arm assembly. Once that was completed, work
continued by way of the F-1267A&B crotch strap (that name makes a guy
cringe a little) brackets. The brackets were prepared for riveting by first installing
two nutplates on each of the four pieces. The pneumatic rivet squeezer and a standard
yoke is good for the F-1267A parts, but the angle on the F-1267B pieces makes
it very hard to rivet using standard yokes with rivet sets, so Van’s has the builder
use #40 flush pop rivets. However, the DOG Aviation facility was able to rivet
the F-1267B pieces by using a no-hole yoke on the squeezer to set AN426AD3-3.5
rivets in lieu of the #40 pop rivets.
Riveting plate nuts onto a F-1267A crotch strap
bracket with the pneumatic squeezer.
Finished F-1267 A&B crotch strap brackets …
one can see the tight angle on the F-1267B crotch strap bracket and the thin
nosed no-hole yoke that was used to set the AN426AD3-3.5 solid rivets in the
nutplates.
After the nutplates were installed onto the
F-1267A&B crotch strap brackets, an A and B bracket was riveted onto both
the pulley bracket assembly and the flaperon mixer arm assembly. That was
followed by sandwiching the F-1267A&B crotch strap brackets between another
F-1215 seat rib. Out of twelve rivets used to attach the crotch strap brackets
to each of the F-1215 ribs, only two pop rivets were necessary.
Riveting an F-1267A crotch strap bracket onto
the pulley bracket assembly using AN470AD4-4 rivets in place of LP4-3 pop
rivets where possible.
Sandwiching the crotch strap brackets with an
F-1215 seat rib … two LP4-3 pop rivets were used where the squeezer could not
reach, the remaining ten rivets were squeezed.
Riveting the F-1267A&B crotch strap brackets
onto the flaperon mixer arm assembly using the pneumatic squeezer and AN470AD4-4
solid rivets where possible.
Making progress … the makings of a place to sit
in the RV-12.
Completed pulley and flaperon mixer arm
assemblies that will soon become the bases for the RV-12’s left and right seats.
