Sunday April 20, 2008
Landing Light (Wings)
4.8 Hours

I decided that the width of the mounting bracket wasn't an issue. The leading edge ribs are naturally bowed out a little bit, plus the flange of the bracket sits against the extrusions on the rib web. Once I installed the mounting bracket and screwed it down, things looked fine.

Here's the light element and reflector installed in the bracket.

And the lens after a bunch of trimming, drilling, and countersinking. Word to the wise: do not use twist drill bits to enlarge holes in plexi. The drill bit grabs into the plexiglass and pulls through extremely quickly, causing chips and possible cracking. I found that my reamers worked well, though.

The backing strips got nutplates.

And here it is all installed on the leading edge. Unfortunately, the fit is bad. There's at least a 1/16" gap between the lens and the skin most of the way around. In a few places, it's worse. I'm 95% sure I'm going to redo the lens, but I don't know if I'll do it now or wait a while.

The leading edge clecoed to the spar for riveting--unless I decide to redo the landing light lens first.

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