Experimenter

DEC 2014

Experimenter is a magazine created by EAA for people who build airplanes. We will report on amateur-built aircraft as well as ultralights and other light aircraft.

Issue link: http://experimenter.epubxp.com/i/434207

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EAA Experimenter 21 something like a paper template. But like everything else, it takes time. Especially since you had to calculate the airfoil and draw it full size for every rib station. "The ribs are built-up trusses, and only those between the spars in the center section are the same. So after you calculated the airfoil for each station, you had to build another rib jig that would only produce two ribs. Then you trashed that jig and made another one. I really like variety, but it gets tiresome after a while. However, it worked well for my situation at the time. I didn't have the time or money to really dive into the project, so every so often I'd make up a pair of ribs, then work on something else." One of the major space hogs in the project was the wing because it is one piece. Also, it is complex, and because it's a cantilever wing, everything on the spar has to be perfect. This includes laminated spar caps that have to be jigged to match the airfoil change as it goes out the wing. To further complicate the life of a builder who is short on space, the spar (hence the wing) is more than 25 feet long. Randy said building the worktable was a project in itself, not only because it was so big but also because it had to have a perfectly flat, true surface. "I built the spar lying flat as if it were a gigantic rib with a similar type of jig," he said. "This let me get all the angles exact. However, when I started actually building the wing, because of the dihedral, I was back to constructing another very stout three-dimen- sional jig. I had to be careful; because even though the spar was quite strong, being that long, it had a little flex and you had to be careful to keep it true. So it was jigged every- where that I could attach the jig to it." The original CP.30 Emeraude wing, on which the Beryl is based, continued to evolve until the Emeraude melded into the certified, French CAP 10 aerobatic trainer. As originally designed for the Beryl, the wing was plywood The canopy was the biggest, most diffi cult single part of the airplane to build. Randy's panel refl ects the trend toward glass cockpits in almost any kind of airplane. And the iPad is becoming the most popular navigation add-on.

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