WWI Student Project

The stabilizer was completed this week and work continues on the rudder. The rudder and elevator control horns were tacked together and after welding they will be installed and welded into their final postions. The horizontal stabilizer is still a work in progress, we are working on the drawings for the attach fittings. after we get those we can manufacture them and atttach the stabilizer to the fuselage. Progress continues every day due to a dedicated group of student team members and staff advisors.

We are continuing work on the tail sufaces, Our strealined tubing came in and the students with Mr. Patterson’s help bent up the pieces for the vertical and the rudder. This week is welding time for those items.
We are fabricating the other metal parts such as the hinges. The work continues, someday it will be a Sopwith Strutter. AIM Atlanta had a job fair last Friday and the Rotec Radial was run for all the participants to see and hear.

Work on the Struttrer is progressing much faster now that we have new help. Students Jin Hong, Brian Henely, Chrstal Lewis, Henry McAdory, Eric Rivers, Frank Darrow and James Gibbins are all volunteering on a regular basis and doing a great job.
The horizontal stabilizer is progressing, all the ribs are complete, the metal parts are in progress and the spar has been planed to the correct dimensions. The spar still has to have the routing completed before we can start assembling the stabilizer. The vertical stabilizer is just about ready to be welded, waiting on a piece of airfoil shaped tubing to arrive. We are still working on producing the leading edge for the stabilizer, making a lot of sawdust, but not quite getting the finished product we are looking for. Ran the Rotec 3600 run stand and as usual it draws a crowd. We are getting it broken in and have been able to run it at a higher RPM, sure sounds great.

We are making good progress on the Strutter. The horizontal and vertical stabilizer are in progress and as soon as the trailing edge material shows up we will be assembling both stabilizers. For those who are building Sopwith aircraft we have found a good source of a&p 121 section tubing(trailing edge) at a good price, let me know if you are interested. We have two new volunteers working on the strutter, Jeffrey Kennedy and Harry McAdory. We are still manufacturing wing ribs(seems like forever) only forty or so to go.

Work continues on the strutter, as always a shortage of helping hands. We are building ribs for the stabilizer, only have to build 10 of them. We have been practicing making the leading edge, it is a bulb shape and is not available anywhere so we are fabricating our own. We had special moulder knives made for these pieces. We will post a picture when we are finished. Besides the leading edge we are also fabricating router jigs to profile and lighten the fwd stabilizer spar.
If the weather cooperates we will take the Rotec out for a run tomorrow.

[caption id="attachment_5162" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Eric Rivers, a new volunteer working on stabilizer rib jig."][/caption][caption id="attachment_5160" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Strutter control yoke"][/caption][
Construction of the Strutter continues. Due to the Holidays and the extreme cold weather we have experienced here in the South, work has been a little slow on the project, though many small parts are still being made. The Horizontal stabilizers many wood parts are being built at this time. We are waiting for the drawings of the metal parts to be completed and then we can start manufacturing the parts and assembling the stabilizer.

Thursday was the big day, after a few months of work the R3600 run stand was complete and ready to go. As we went through the pre start check list a crowd began to form, students, staff, and others from the airport. As is normal for first runs something had to go wrong, but luckly it was just a dead battery. We swapped batteries and finished the check list. yelled “clear”, pulled the choke and pushed the starter button and the Rotec came alive, a cloud of smoke and it was running. What a great sound. Everyone was really suprised on how easily it started. We ran it twice Thursday and then again on Friday to confirm temperatures and pressures. Every thing checked out great, now back to work on the airframe and wings. Can’t wait to see the engine mounted on the front of the Strutter.

Students prepared both center section spars for gluing, after waiting a couple of days for the rain to quit, and the humidity to drop a bit we were able to glue both spars. Other students are working on small parts for the fuselage and landing gear. The control stick machining has been completed and it is now ready for welding. The students will be installing more of the control system this week. The cockpit floor panels are in the design phase and we should start cutting the panels next week.

The run stand is on hold until the oil and fuel tank are welded, that will hopefuly be soon, only thing lacking is fuel and oil lines and then it will be ready to run.
Work on the Sopwith is moving along. We are making the last of the pieces to attach the axels to each other, then the aircraft can sit on it’s own gear. We have a new student helping on this project, April Stigler. April is in her second term here in Atlanta, and has volunteered her help on the Sopwith project. In the photo she is laying out the top piece for the fulcrum joint that attaches both axels to each other.
We are at a point now when we will have to make a choice of which brake sytem to use. Clevelands are the first choice at this time, but it may change. We have decided not to use a rudder bar as it would make attaching brake pedals difficult. We are going to use rudder pedals to actuate the rudder and the brakes, we have some used Cessna units we may modify for the Sopwith. As usual there are many decisions to make on every new piece we build.