Necessary skills

If you have followed the story so far, you might be curious to find out how a Long EZ is put together. 

There are 3 principal ways of building airplanes, and the majority of airplane constructions embrace at least two of them. Probably the most popular is the aluminum alloy sheet metal construction, followed by the tubes/wood and fabric method of old. Lastly and most “recent”, is the development of the composite building process, and by “recent” I mean "in the last 30 years". 

But let’s proceed in order.

Aluminum construction consists in bonding, usually by way of riveting, aluminum sheets of various shapes and sizes, to create aircraft components, and eventually the airplane itself.

Before...

... after.

Most general aviation airplanes produced in the past 50 years, all commercial jets, and the majority of military planes (stealth excluded), fit into this category. 

It is a proven construction method that require some specialized tools and techniques, but can be mastered in time. 

Wing section

In 2010 I attended a two day sheet metal workshop, put together by the Experimental Aviation Association (EAA), and I fabricated the wing section depicted above. I absolutely enjoyed the class, and would highly recommend it.

As you can see, just about anyone can produce acceptable results with the proper coaching, but the skill to master the art of riveting requires time, and mistakes are unavoidable. It is critical this errors not be made on the actual airplane, as the repairs can be time consuming, and sometimes more difficult to accomplish than the original task.


I declare my complete ignorance of the tube/wood and fabric construction method. I took a few pictures of people learning such skills at my last workshop.

It just looked like a lot of work and, to tell you the truth, I have never been fond of thread and needles. 

Moving on!

We finally arrived at the composite camp. 


Because the 2010 sheet metal workshop turned out to be such a great experience, I decided to part with another $300, to attend another EAA workshop, this time on a composites. 


Scott Vanderveen was our instructor, and we couldn't have asked for a more knowledgable mentor. You see Scott is the owner of Pro-Composites, Inc., and produces a handful of different aircraft designs, all composites of course, and is a walking encyclopedia of anything composite.

Scott teaching class

After the theory session in the morning, we moved on to the practical applications in the shop, where everyone had their chance of success.

Practice session

Once again the experience turned out to be a fantastic learning opportunity, and I would encourage anyone to attend any EAA workshop, as they are taught by knowledgable people who love to share their craft.

At the end of the second day I had worked enough at it to produce three different pieces, all representative of different composite techniques, a T-joint, a fiberglass-over-foam canard section, and a fiberglass-over-clay fairing.

What $300 and a weekend will buy you

If you look closely at the transparent piece, you can see that I purposely left some fiberglass dry at the top corner, to highlight the difference in the state of the material, before and after adding the epoxy. Naturally this part would be trimmed before using it, but this was just an exercise.