Anyhow, I made some good progress. The aft fuselage was completely prepped and now its cleco-ed back together...next step is riveting. I already finished up the far aft assembly and the tail spring.
As you can see, I am now over 700 hrs in the project. I've come a long way...with a long way to go in this journey. As I look back, its really amazing how different of a builder I am now compared to when I started, you really do learn a lot when building one of these.
I ordered a Dynon pitch servo mounting kit from Aircraft Spruce. $75 for this thing, what a ripoff--its just a simple alum bracket and some misc hardware. Ah, such is life in the aviation business, everything costs more than it does in the real world. ;) While I was at it, I also stocked up on some torque seal and drill bits.
Tail spring drilled, mounted and finalized. As you can see I primed the very aft tail cone bottom skin. I figured this is an area that would very susceptible to water entry and pooling. I know, I know...my plane might be so heavy it will never fly when its done!! But it wont corrode. haha
Bottom side view of the tail spring. The large hole is a wrench access hole for the attachment bolt (not shown). You also have to make that funky cutout (Vans gives you a pattern to follow) for the tail spring mount.
A lot of guys have complained about the bottom skins directly behind the baggage compartment 'oil canning' in flight because of airflow in that area. More of a nuisance than anything, but I didn't want my airplane making funky noises if I can easily fix it. I have heard of guys going to elaborate measures (laminated stiffeners, etc) to solve this problem. I was originally planning to just add some kind of homemade stiffeners in that area. Then it dawned on me that I had some extra J-stiffener material left over. I checked the plans and couldn't see a need for them later, so voila...I used them to stiffen the skins. Looks very professional...I like it. Hopefully that solves the problem. I was able to back rivet these which was nice.
Edit 07/06/11: Jason Beaver mentioned to me that some guys were experiencing cracking when installing skin stiffeners in the tail cone. The general concensus on VAF was to tie them into the bulkheads so they wont flex as much. I'm not sure how, or if, I am going to modify mine but think about this before you do yours.
Riveted the elevator bell crank together...this is where the servo motor will attach later.
This is the $75 bracket (after priming...it comes as bare alum) from Dynon and their installation instructions.
And here it is, riveted in place. That's all I need for now, the $750 servo motor will be installed later when I win the lottery and have the money to buy it. ;)
Here are my added J-stiffeners back riveted in place.
Since I painted the aft bottom skin, I stayed consistent and did the aft side skins also. Ignore the nut plate for the rudder cable that I added. Stupid mistake...I didn't read the plans correctly. I removed those later and just dimpled the hole for a #8 flathead screw. An adel clamp will be used here to secure the rudder cables as they exit the fuse.
No comments:
Post a Comment