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Aviation History
1937
1937 - 1322.PDF
496 FLIGHT. MAY 20, 1937. Details of outer wing portion, showing how sheet-metal nose covering is built as two complete units, afterwards attached to single girder spar. Note the ingenious leading edge joint. sections of duralumin, a num ber of laminations of " L " section being covered and held together by an unsym- metrical " Z " section placed over the bent-up flanges, as shown in the sketches. The rear wall of the spar box is a girder of " N " for mation, the vertical members of which are of built-up chan nel sections with flanges turned outwards to facilitate riveting, while the diagonal members of the " N" are circular-section tubes with flattened ends. This girder occurs approximately at the mid-chord. The front wall of the spar box is of solid duralumin plate with channel-section vertical stiffeners. The top and bottom of the spar box are covered with duralumin sheet plating. This covering is made up on smaller jigs, and a feature of the system is that the wing ribs form an integral part with the covering. This plating is made up in five separate sections on the smaller jigs, i.e., a centre unit, an inboard port and star board unit and a port and starboard engine structure unit outboard. These smaller units are then removed from the jigs and taken to the large centre-section jigs, where they are put on the spars already held in place ready to receive them. When the centre-section unit has been com pleted on its jig it is removed and travels lengthwise down the shop to the next posi tion in the production line, where the engine mountings are put on. These mountings, com plete with engines, have, in the meantime, been assembled on other jigs and have flowed laterally towards the production line. Here, also, as much as possible of the necessary "plumbing" is done. This is obviously very convenient, as all the corners which would be awkward of access once the centre section was in place on the fuselage are quite easy to get at while the unit is on a jig, and the rela tively small number of men working on the centre section do not get in one another's way. It is in the construction of the outer wing portions that the really clever production methods are chiefly to be found. Like the centre section, the outer wing portions con sist of a composite type of construction, but .the area from the leading edge to the girder spar is covered with sheet metal, while the rear portions have tubular girder ribs covered with fabric. In order to facilitate the construction of the sheet-metal planking as a complete unit a special type of construction has been employed in the leading-edge portion of the wing. Per haps this can be better explained by stating The fuselage, although of girder construction, is also built in several units. The upper picture shows two, with their front gun turrets carried on metal-covered structures. On the left is the mounting and cowling of one of the Bristol Pegasus engines on the wing leading edge.
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