Just a few quick pictures of what I've been up to in my aircraft structures class lately..

We've been building some wing ribs out of aircraft spruce (of course). The wooden wing-rib comes from the Baby great lakes biplane that sits partially assembled in our class-room... lucky for me I have a total of four rejected ribs...though they look fine they all have problems where the glue didn't work quite right, something that happens when you have amatuers building planes...


If you look closely all of those little gold dots are actually little tiny nails which you have to hold with tweezers to pound them in...very tough..


Just a random metal wing rib that we built in class, our A&P rated instructor wasn't sure where it had come from...


I'm hoping to get into the lab and get some quality shots of the wings and fuselage that we have managed to build in the past four months.  I was mainly stuck on the welder, joining metal tubing for our fuselage, and the rest of the class basically built wooden wing ribs every class period...The wings are pretty much ready to come out of their jigs, and the fuselage is looking like an airplane...  8)

In case I haven't told you, when we started four months ago we had a pile of metal, a pile of wood, and a BIG roll of blue prints..  

Unfortunately our semester is over and the class next semester will continue our work...

Nice work Jared I'll send you the plans for my wing ribs shall I?

Very interesting Jared & well done. This is all fine experience.

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We used to call them brads. They're usually made of brass. There are special tools available to help position them & give them a start without using the tweezers. We used to make our own.

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It's always best to learn how it's done the hard way. They tell me the old RAF Halton Apprentices used to spend the first 6 months learning how to use a file properly.

The tool I mentioned is very simple. It works on the same principle as an automatic centre punch.

PS. Here's an example. This one is magnetic which would be no use with brass brads. http://www.tooled-up.com/Product.asp?PID=13454

...Very nice work Jared....keep it on...

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Wel I guess we were more advanced? They assumed we knew how to use a whole bunch of tools....

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It doesn't work that way in the military. In the British services at least you have to learn it their way or not at all. They assume you know nothing so it's best to make out you know nothing, which is true more often than not. If you're a truck driver they teach you to do something completely different & you would probably end up servicing radios or peeling spuds in the cookhouse - anything but driving trucks. They don't want you to have preconceived ideas. I was never in the services but I've trained plenty of people in my time & would much prefer to teach a complete beginner the proper way, including the correct method of using basic tools.

The RAF Apprentice scheme was regarded as the finest trade training in the world. It's not quite the same now but the idea was to take a young lad of 16 straight from school & turn him into an airman & skilled engineer. I found this amusing account of what it was like to be a Halton Apprentice in 1960. http://www.halton96th.co.uk/history.htm

By a strange coincidence this was the time I got my first job in civil aviation. I had seriously considered applying to become a Halton Apprentice myself, as many of my friends had done. I often wonder what I'd be doing now if I'd gone down that route.