Yesterday evening Doug Gray and I did the layup for one side of the aft fuselage plug. I couldn't even tell you which side; since the part is axially symmetric. All I know is that the seams run along the top and bottom, so it is definitely a side.
The thing that made me a bit nervous about this layup is that, because of the nature of the spindle construction, I had to apply vacuum to the entire internal volume of the 6" dia. x 12-foot spindle tube. That's about 2.3 ft^3. And even though I'm only pulling 10" of mercury, I worried a little bit about what would happen if the end seal on the big tube suddenly collapsed. I think it would make a big hollow booming sound. It would probably sound almost nothing like a single hand clapping.
Today at lunch I'll go back to the garage and open the vacuum bag and see what we got. If it's good, we'll do the layup for the opposite side tonight.
page updated 17 September 2003 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2003 HP Aircraft, LLC