Ready for prime time!

It has bee quite a while since my last post, as work has kept me (far) away from the Pelican project, but now I am back in Lima for a month or so, so we are moving full speed ahead on the project.

While away, had to find something else to do :)

While I was away, Gamal and Juan pretty much finished the fabric covering of the whole plane. The covering took a while (because of other planes getting on the way) but it was pretty much uneventful, except for an issue with the aileron tips.

The issue was with the tip of the aileron. Specifically, the when the aileron was covered with fabric, the tip area bent under the stress of the tightening fabric.  It could be that to the fabric was heated to tight... but my guess is that there should have been one more rib on the aileron between the last one it had and the end of the aileron.

The reason I think this, is because the aileron has ribs evenly separated, except the end rib, which for some reason is placed at twice the separation than the rest. I am guessing that this left the tip vulnerable to bending by the fabric pressure.  Our solution was to add another rib and an end plate before the re-fabric work.  So far it seems to be holding well, except for a little rubbing with a small spot on the plywood that covers the end of the wing. (our solution for this, was to file away the plywood "tip" )

As I mentioned before, we used Stewart Systems Ekobond as our adhesive and it has worked quite well, with the added benefit that it is easy to work on and a no "nasty fumes" chemical.

After the fabric work, a hand of Dope paint was applied and soon after a second hand with aluminum so to protect the fabric from UV.

At this point, the only thing missing is the cosmetic paint cover, to make the aircraft look good.

I am expecting that tomorrow , we might be able to give it a first tow to see how it behaves.

I will keep you posted!