Many of you know I’m (slowly) building a replica of an old Tiger Moth bi-plane. I’ve got the 4 wings pretty much done, but I was sitting in the hangar one day trying to visualize how I would get the nuts onto the aileron brackets once I had the wing and aileron covered in fabric.

You can see tolerances are pretty tight (for a wood airplane) and there’s no easy way to get a wrench into that space above the spar where the bracket sits. The bolts will go UP through the spar and bracket.

I’m in a hangar with 4 other guys building airplanes and we looked and studied, looked and studied some more, but the ultimate solution was I had to start over and make new brackets. Why? Here’s the reason and pictures of how I built new brackets.

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I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I’ve updated progress on the Tiger Moth! Too much work and not enough play time at the airport…

But during the past 6 plus months I’ve managed to finish the lower right wing which has the aileron. Some biplanes have ailerons on all 4 wings, but I’ve chosen to just have them on the lower wings.

To see how this wing progressed, especially how the aileron was built, I’ve posted some more pictures.

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Many friends and clients know I’ve been slowly building a replica of a 1930’s era biplane called a Tiger Moth at a hangar at Camarillo airport.

3 wings are done and hanging in the rafters and I’m almost finished with the 4th – the lower right wing that has an aileron (controls the turns). I’ve just made the aluminum brackets for the pivots that the aileron will swing from. After double checking all the alignment Read the rest of this article »

Laying out for the leading edge.

During April, after installing the wing tip bow and the curved inner trailing edge piece, I started on wrapping the leading edge of the wing.

This is the 4th wing (of a bi-plane) and yet I’m somewhat nervous because this is 1/16″ Finnish plywood – very thin and yet very workable for this application.

I’ve previously installed the rounded nose caps that I’ll be wrapping the plywood over, and ultimately, it all gets covered in fabric – just like a 1930s era airplane.

So how’d it turn out? Check it out and see!

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Wing tip bow finished

In my last report I mentioned how I had to re-do the wing tip bow. I wasn’t a happy camper. I’d epoxy’d that laminated, curved bow to those 2 extensions, but something had slipped and I used a heat gun to loosen the epoxy and then re-set the bow. It worked the second time, then I added the bracing and various small blocking pieces.

Then it was on to installing a curved, laminated piece at the trailing edge of the wing, next to the root.  It’s strictly for looks, and will give a more pleasing sense to the eye when done.

Read on for more details!

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