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Permalink Reply by Chris Aysen on January 31, 2011 at 12:46pm

a/c wings??? If your talking a Zenith aircraft of some sort I would correct the mistake.

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Permalink Reply by Bob Pustell on February 1, 2011 at 10:44pm

In a perfect world, all overlapping joints are done in a way that has the air passing over the airplane holding the lapped joints together. In other words, your wing skins should be tucked under the leading edge skins. If the wing skin is on top, the air can "hook" on the exposed edge of the wing skin and try to "peel" it back. The rivits will prevent this, but it will create drag and may develop some rough edges. Also, this "hook" effect will catch water (if you ever fly in the rain) and drive it into the joint, encouraging corrossion. If the overlap was in the other direction, the wind driven water would roll right over the joint and keep heading aft, never to enter the aircraft structure.

 

In the real world, it most likely will not make a huge difference. My bigger concern with having the wing skins and leading edge skins installed incorrectly would be -- What else did the builder do wrong that could be more dangerous? If the builder was this sloppy in this area, what else is not right?

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Permalink Reply by Vergoz Max on February 2, 2011 at 12:24am

Hi 

tks a lot for explanation and ideas Bob..  Chris the a/c is a home made.... original..  As you said Bob ... what else is not right.... i dont know... i've just seen this strange wings riveting . gone tell him to paid more attention  when  doing something  ... 

regards From La Reunion

Max

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Permalink Reply by Max Johansson on February 3, 2011 at 4:26pm

Bob, at one of his Sun-n-Fun talks Chris Heintz advocated the other way around i.e. that a forward facing edge is better than a backward facing edge in order to minimize drag. So perhaps the drag is not the important thing here, but your comment about skins peeling up from between bad rivets is enough to make me keep the skins according to plans...rgrds, Max (the other Max from snowbound Helsinki).

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Permalink Reply by Vergoz Max on February 3, 2011 at 11:06pm

Happy to  " see " you Max .

My question was to get some idea about troubles on this " bad  setting " of top skin... Tks to all of you for yr answer. going today to wash and clean my 701...our field is a grass field and my landing gear is a little bit dirty

wishing you a good day

fly safely

Max...sorry for my poor english

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