WING-1

          Main Spar center section of bolted and riveted construction. Made from 6061T6 caps and reinforcements and 2024T3 webs. 16G ultimate at 1800lbs. aircraft weight. 2 holes are for coolant pipes. The large hole is for the landing gear pivot shaft.

 

 Wheeling .040 thick 2024T3 Leading Edge joint strip on homemade wheeling machine using a urethane wheel against a cast iron formed wheel made from a shop cart wheel. They were machined on my small lathe. Leading Edge strip gaining compound curvature on tight wheel. I was only able to handle 48 inch long strips by myself. First one took 3 nerve-wracking days including making the wheels. Second one took 3 hours! 6 were required.

 

Center section top skin gaining compound leading edge radius between 2 cast iron wheels costing less than $10.00 each. Note top wheel is adjustable as well as the bottom one which operates on a foot pedal though it can be locked. This makes it easy to form compound curves very rapidly. Lots of other forming techniques were used and developed to get a good fit. Basic wing structure assembled showing LE strip in place. The wheel well is oddly shaped to accommodate outer gear doors. There is 3 degrees of washout. The center section accommodates torsion through a combination of differential spar bending and skin reinforced torsion boxes. Wheel well showing false spar. The gear pivot shaft is supported in 3 places and also stabilizes the wing structure in flight. The framework for the radiator cooling chutes is below the false spar. The structure is considerably more rigid in torsion than the original Spitfires as no gun or ammunition concessions need to be made.