Mating the Wing to the Fuselage

Submitted by Chris Smith Gustavus, Alaska

I just passed another milestone in building my IIS RG-connecting the wing and the fuselage. I only have a few tips, most of which may seem pretty obvious, but which would have saved me a couple days in building time. Most important is to establish cord line while the wing is in its initial wing jig. All I would have had to do is draw one level line on a A or B rib or hot glued a small bubble level somewhere. As it was, I had to mess around and try and find the aft cord line after I had extended the top aft portion of the wing for the slotted flaps. Also, having a completed wing made it harder to check and see if there was any difference in cord line from the root to the tip (that could be averaged out in the leveling process).

I used an overhead hoist for the fuselage, which was balanced evenly so I could easily move it up and down around its balance point to slip over the wing leading edge. The wing was supported with wing jacks and sawhorses with small jackscrews to crank in the level. I used a smart level and the measurements in the manual to get the 2.3 degrees and triple checked everything.

I have the large horizontal stab and decided NOT to move the wing aft after talking with a few other builders and reviewing projected W&B numbers in SB114. As with many other parts of this project, I’ll never know what I did right (or wrong) until it flies.