Wings come together

Miss D. and I have been making progress on putting together the wings for her Taylorcraft. It's a surprisingly complex piece of work, with spars, ribs, spacers, braces, struts, ailerons and a host of bits and pieces contributing to the whole. There's a photograph of the wing-in-progress on Miss D.'s blog.

To make life more interesting, of course, Miss D. put all the small parts into plastic bags when disassembling the original wings. This means that the parts we need to rebild them are available, provided we can find the necessary bag! Some bags appear to have developed a persecution complex and are stubbornly hiding from us. Very awkward when one needs them to get further! Meanwhile, her plane waits for its wings. Here's a picture of it at the airfield, looking rather naked without them!




It's fascinating to work on a piece of history like this aircraft. It was in service when the US was catapulted into World War II by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Its log book records training activities that morning, followed by a prolonged grounding (along with most other commercial and private aviation). For the rest of the war it was used to train army liaison pilots, and after the war reverted to its civilian function. The original wings served for well over 60 years before deteriorating to the point where new spars were required - quite a record by anyone's standards!

Peter