Some wing ribs...

[Jared]

Just a few quick pictures of what I've been up to in my aircraft structures class lately..;-)

We've been building some wing ribs out of aircraft spruce (of course). The wooden wing-rib comes from the Baby great lakes biplane that sits partially assembled in our class-room...:-) lucky for me I have a total of four rejected ribs...though they look fine they all have problems where the glue didn't work quite right, something that happens when you have amatuers building planes...


If you look closely all of those little gold dots are actually little tiny nails which you have to hold with tweezers to pound them in...very tough..:-)


Just a random metal wing rib that we built in class, our A&P rated instructor wasn't sure where it had come from...


I'm hoping to get into the lab and get some quality shots of the wings and fuselage that we have managed to build in the past four months.

[N505AF]

Nice work.  Are you guys building the wood ribs for part of your Airframe rateing in class.  I can tell you on military aircraft theres really no wood at all on the aircraft.  I work on F-16CJ's and F-15C, F-15D, an F-15E and all most every thing we do is S/M work its fun at times but its still a job at the end of the day( I want to be a beach bum).  P.S. the aft lightning whole on the metal rib does it have edge distance from the bend tangent line to the lightning hole because it dont look like it?  And the stiffener on the forward part of the rib looks a little odd it kind of looks like it needs to be centered between the lightning wholes more to keep from causing stress on the center lightning whole.  But it could just be me seeing things its not like I dont work on airframes every day ....  Very nice work!!!!

[ozzy72]

Nice work Jared I'll send you the plans for my wing ribs shall I?

[Jared]

Nice work Jared I'll send you the plans for my wing ribs shall I?

You do that, and be sure to send me all of the materials and the jigs as well, I'll build em...;-)

As for the other questions, this class was not for any certification, just to give us aeronautics students at the university a feel for what is going on and what can happen to an aircraft's structure.  

The metal wing rib was really a complete disaster, the rest of my group went ahead and did it one day while I was welding the rudder support on the fuselage...they drilled the holes too far on one side, they really messed up the sides, put deep gouges in the aluminum clading on it, and the worst part is they mashed most of the rivets pretty bad.  Needless to say our rib was not intended to be placed on an aircraft, just something we had to kind of know how to do.  It may have turned out better if the instructor was more readily available.  He was there, but he was usually lurking over my shoulder as I was doing critical welding... I suppose you can call it that...

Oh, we got 15 out of 15 for the wooden ones, and 14 out of 15 for the metal one..;-) of course the grade is not all workmanship as 10 points is accounted for with a written quiz on the lab processes used to fabricate the part.

[Hagar]

Very interesting Jared & well done. This is all fine experience.

If you look closely all of those little gold dots are actually little tiny nails which you have to hold with tweezers to pound them in...very tough..

We used to call them brads. They're usually made of brass. There are special tools available to help position them & give them a start without using the tweezers. We used to make our own.

[Jared]

Very interesting Jared & well done. This is all fine experience.

We used to call them brads. They're usually made of brass. There are special tools available to help position them & give them a start without using the tweezers. We used to make our own.

Really? Now you tell me! After all of those months of holding tweezers...;-) lol...oh well it's over now..:-)

[Hagar]

Really? Now you tell me! After all of those months of holding tweezers...;-) lol...oh well it's over now..:-)

It's always best to learn how it's done the hard way. They tell me the old RAF Halton Apprentices used to spend the first 6 months learning how to use a file properly.

The tool I mentioned is very simple. It works on the same principle as an automatic centre punch.

PS. Here's an example. This one is magnetic which would be no use with brass brads. http://www.tooled-up.com/Product.asp?PID=13454

[Jared]

That's cool, perhaps someday in the future I will be doing something similar and now I know how to do it easier than I have done before! :-) Thanks for the info!

[Fitter]

...Very nice work Jared....keep it on...

[N505AF]

It's always best to learn how it's done the hard way. They tell me the old RAF Halton Apprentices used to spend the first 6 months learning how to use a file properly.
http://www.tooled-up.com/Product.asp?PID=13454

Humm that was part of the 1st week in my schooling for the U.S.A.F

[Jared]

Humm that was part of the 1st week in my schooling for the U.S.A.F

Wel I guess we were more advanced? They assumed we knew how to use a whole bunch of tools....

[N505AF]

HaHa...

[Hagar]

Wel I guess we were more advanced? They assumed we knew how to use a whole bunch of tools....

It doesn't work that way in the military. In the British services at least you have to learn it their way or not at all. They assume you know nothing so it's best to make out you know nothing, which is true more often than not. If you're a truck driver they teach you to do something completely different & you would probably end up servicing radios or peeling spuds in the cookhouse - anything but driving trucks. They don't want you to have preconceived ideas. I was never in the services but I've trained plenty of people in my time & would much prefer to teach a complete beginner the proper way, including the correct method of using basic tools.

The RAF Apprentice scheme was regarded as the finest trade training in the world. It's not quite the same now but the idea was to take a young lad of 16 straight from school & turn him into an airman & skilled engineer. I found this amusing account of what it was like to be a Halton Apprentice in 1960. http://www.halton96th.co.uk/history.htm

By a strange coincidence this was the time I got my first job in civil aviation. I had seriously considered applying to become a Halton Apprentice myself, as many of my friends had done. I often wonder what I'd be doing now if I'd gone down that route.

[Jared]

lol, lovely story there mate, sounds like a typical day..:-)