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ULTRALIGHT OR AN AIRPLANE?

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SCOTT EVANS

New Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2005
Messages
1
I wanted to get opinions on a few things on a particular airplane im building (stol king)
The plans are not the best in the world. They call for .020 6061 ribs so thats what I formed them out of. But I gota tell you after forming a couple of ribs out of .032 6061 for a wet wing area, that these were the real ribs and the others were for practice (.020 ribs just seamed to weak although there are renforcing bars in the wing) I was thinking of bead rolling the area between the holes to stiffen them up but I dont know. The .020 seamed fine for the controle surfaces. The air plane largly based on a piper cub and even uses its double spars. Swithing to.032 in the whole wing (ribs and skins) would only add 25 pounds. And one other big thing. Some books say rivets should be placed no further apart than 24 times the thickness of the skin your riveting? But all the info I get (pictures ect.) seam to indicate metal and fabric builders put one every couple of inches OR SO!
I was going to wrap the nose skins aroud and attach them to the spar like I think they do ina cub. How many rivets? What spacing? What kind?The plans dont say! Would the .020 ribs be ok once every things put together? I ask the designer a few things but seamed to get better answers out of the guy selling me the metal(like why 6061 and not 2024) As I came to the coclusion on my own, because of the corosion factor for a rag wing. Am I right? Any opinions would be welcome.

scott e.

p.s Why not just fill the rest of the wing with metal is it really that much heavier than fabric?
 
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