How An Airplane Door Hinge Works

By using an old hand planer of course.

How an airplane door hinge works.

Put five or six drops of foam safe thin ca on both sides of the hinge at the hinge line. These types of hinges work on a vacuum system so that when you open the door a plunger sucks air out of a chamber the loss of this air creates a vacuum. The hinge pin is a piece of 074 music wire. The door you mentioned is called a plug door.

Once you determine that the door isn t sticking due to a loose hinge or two which is easy enough to fix with a screwdriver you may find that you need to plane or shave the excess wood from the problem side so you can get your door working again. The bearing material is the yellow inner part from a ny rod set. On some aircraft the plug door opens partially inward and through a complex hinge design can be tilted to fit through the fuselage opening or the door may have locking hinged panels at the top and bottom edges that can make it smaller than the opening so that it may be swung outward. Let it do so overnight.

So how do you plane a door without taking it off. The security hinge can use several different features to make it either difficult to remove the hinge pins or hard to take the door off by removing the hinge pins. Plug doors are particularly interesting and are designed with a complex hinge structure that allows the doors to partially open and then tilt to snugly fit through the fuselage opening. Hinges are attached to landing gear doors and plug doors for example.

When you let go of the door the vacuum pulls the plunger back into the empty space closing the door. Cut your hinge slots with a sharp hobby knife and insert the hinges just as you do when you hinge a balsa plane. Foam does not have the same moisture content as balsa so it will take the ca a while to cure. Today zap hinge glue is no longer available ho.

This invention relates to door hinges and more particularly to hinges for connecting a door to the fuselage of an aircraft. In the fire fly s case the thinnest hinge is 1 4 inch thick. The sharp and angled blade allows you to shave thin strips from the wood as you move it along the surface of the door. Flanges and set screws can hold the pins in place for instance or stud screws can hold the two sides of the security hinge together even after the hinge pin is removed.

When it comes to doors aerospace hinges are not simply limited to entrance exit doors on various aircraft. This vintage video show the basic techniques for hinging rc airplane control surfaces. On some aircraft the plug door opens partially inward and through a complex hinge design can be tilted to fit through the fuselage opening or the door may have locking hinged panels at the top and bottom edges that can make it smaller than the opening so that it may be swung outward.