The Quickbuild Dilemma

The Van's "quickbuild" kits are designed to allow you to get into the air early - much of the 'rote' construction on the fuselage and wings has been completed, thinks like wing rib/skin preparation and drilling, fuselage skin work, fuselage floor, fuselage bulkhead construction and fitting are all dome for you. The quality of the work is extremely good.

The "dilemma" exists mainly for first-time builders like myself with little previous technical or engineering experience. Van's Instruction Manual and drawing set are designed for normal "slow" builders, people who construct everything from scratch. There are no specific instructions for "quickbuilders" whose wings and fuselage appear nearl complete to the uninitiated!

The "Wings" chapter has a section devoted to Quickbuilders, which lists a gross series of actions which need to be completed. This is useful, but pretty obvious as the Wings are relatively uncomplicated.

The "Fuselage" Chapter has very little to help the Quickbuilder, apart from the occasional "Note to Quickbuilders" which appears from time to time.

Unfortunately the "Quickbuild" process is not sequential. It is not as if they have followed the instructions to page 5-21 and then stopped! In fact there are small jobs which are purposely left out of both the fuselage and wing construction, I guess to provide builders with teh optimum flexibility in choices for the aircraft.

The only viable approach under these circumstances is for a quickbuilder to pretend that they are a slowbuilder, and read through the instructions and drawings as if they had built it themselves. This is what I have attempted to do. It sort of works, but sometimes it is complicated by the fact that ,many small components referred to in the instructions and drawing are now "lost" somewhere in tyhe larger structures.

MY QUICK BUILD LIST OF JOBS (WHAT I DID):

A. WINGS:

  1. Fabricate aileron attach brackets
  2. Fabricate aileron pushods (x 4)
  3. Match-drill sheet flap support/attach components
  4. Prime as above
  5. Rivet above components to quickbuild wings
  6. Finish ends of pivot tubes of aileron bellcranks
  7. Drill/rout aileron bellcrank bushes to ID 1/4" (important to use precision router)
  8. Grind ends of bushes fo they are 1/32" - 1/64" longer than bellcrank tubes
  9. CAREFULLY loosen AN3 bolts attaching bellcrank support brackets to spar - remove brackets
  10. Loosely assemble brackets, bellcranks and bushes with long AN3 bolts/washers/nuts

  11. WHILE ASSY IS LOOSE, reattach brackets to spar - DON'T STRIP THREADS - include autopilot servo mounts if appropriate, and safety-wire

  12. Make aluminium spacers for Aileron attach bolts
  13. Attach ailerons and thin pushrods in position - ENSURE ALL SPACERS AND WASHERS IN CORRECT POSITIONS
  14. Cut flap-attach 1/2 hinge to length and attach to hinge riveted to lower wing
  15. Using ailerons as reference, position flaps in correct horizontal and fore/aft position (line up trailing edges)
  16. Drill hinge and cleco - do it progressively
  17. Rivet hinge and flap, insert hinge pins and safety as required

 

B. FUSELAGE

  1. Drill out temporary pop rivets attaching rear bulkhead to fuse skin
  2. Remove rear bulkhead assembly from fuse
  3. Make a template from the drawing for the "mousehole" for the tailwheel spring - tape it to the fuselage in location and mark the sheet
  4. Remove the sheet for the tailwheel mousehole and finish
  5. Locate tailwheel spring mount, prime and paint as required
  6. Fit tailwheel spring mount into position and re-install rear bulkhead (it IS possible, top goes in first, then press DOWN and BACK to reposition it
  7. Match-drill mount with empty holes in