I was home all week, but didn't get as much done as I hoped. Tuesday evening I unpacked a big crate that arrived with my engine cowling, exhaust system, and a whole bunch of odds and ends. Wednesday I was in Montreal for the day, and didn't get home til late. Thursday I started aligning the wings in preparation for drilling the rear spar. Friday night we had our first restaurant meal outside this year - it was a beautiful evening - spring is finally here!

Getting the wings aligned is a long, iterative process. You need to hang two plumb bobs from the leading edge of each wing, one at the wing tip, and one at the root. You know the wings are on the same line when the four plumb bobs are lined up. Van suggests using a chalk line on the floor to check that the plumb bobs are all on the same line, but that seemed cumbersome. I stretched a piece of dental floss from side to side about 14 inches off the floor, so it cleared the wheels. I had to put the dental floss a half inch back from the plumb bob strings to ensure that it didn't hit the landing gear legs, but it was easy to measure from the floss to the plumb bobs to confirm they were all in the same plane.

After getting the wings aligned with each other, you measure from each wing tip back to the tail end of the fuselage - you need to have the same distance on each side. Once you get those measurements sorted out, then you use a level and a spacer to set the incidence angle. Of course, I had to adjust the height of the rear spar where it attaches to the fuselage, and that screwed up the fore and aft alignment of the wing tip. I eventually got the rear spars clamped to the fuselage with all the measurements perfect, and then drilled the rear spar bolt holes. The trick now is to never check those measurements again, because you can no longer change them :-)

There is a piece of fuselage skin that overlaps the wing on the lower surface to close the gap - I drilled and clecoed it to the wing. Then I started mounting the ailerons so I can adjust the lengths of the pushrods.