building a 701 wing in Ghana with Ghanaian girls learning about aviation

This has been a great week! Our trainee girls from Ghana are really geting into building planes BIG time.

Patricia has been with us nearly 2 years, Jennifer nearly 1 year and Sandra just a couple of months - but they really are a great team.

We have taught them about general engineering, tube and cloth construction and of course the wonderful world of Aluminium (British spelling to be correct)!!! All of them are learning to fly, and we really enjoy the workshop together. We are also training Rosina to manage our airfield - the largest private airfield in West Africa. (you can see her on our new tower at the back right of this picture).


As the girls set out to build the wing I was really impressed. OK, they have seen it done, participated in it and now they are DOING IT!

THey laid out thje skeleton beautifully - all of the care needed and correct actions taken for little mistakes that we all might make (2 A4 rivets got upgraded to A5 - I have done worse!!) - inspection is all important in these things and reassurance that we can fix little things that do go wrong!!!


When fitting the rear channel we have our little jig and use it as prescribed to set one side and then use to cross check the other side - tripple checking with the 'eye alignment' along all of the channels (It is a shame that we cannot just have one channel along the rear, eh?).



Ofcourse, the careful positioning and setting of the flaperon brakets was done to a high standard and so was the funny little bit on the root rib! (note the locking blocks for the spar and the foot wear sign on our bench).



On to skining, laying out the pitch for the aux tank channel, and of course lots of teamwork.



I have to say that what we do here in Ghana beats anything else we have ever done - and that includes many things beyond most peoples imaginations.

THese wings are the final parts for the Medicine on the Move medical ops CH701 which already has its engine on and is just waiting for its hangar to be finished before we can paint and final assembly!!!


It is truely and exciting week - and even if we are not at 'Sun n fun' we have more sunshine and fun than most!!!

God bless,

Jonathan and the Hanagar crew

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Comment by Thomas Richardson on April 24, 2009 at 8:52am
Guys I love reading your posts, so keep them coming.... My wife and I are sure that somehow you are in our future. We dont know how yet, but what you do on a daily basis has touched us in a way that is indescribable( that may not be right). Just the fact that you help provide futures where none might have existed is inspiring, and I hope that it has done so for the many of us on this site who are more fortunate.

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