Category Archives: Fuselage
Elevator pushrod
Attaching tail to fuselage
When attaching the horizontal stabilizer, it is important to be sure the bolt holes will go through the angle beneath the longerons with enough room for the nuts to clear the leg. I checked the measurement and though I had more clearance then I ended up with–I may have got lucky. I did have to remove one rivet and install it from the other direction to prevent interfering with the nut.
I had to cut probably about 1/16″ or so off the stabilizer skins to get them to fit around the turtle-deck (as directed by the plans).
The vertical tail was a tight fit. I had to trim some of the rear turtledeck to allow for clearance of the spar attachment when installing it (the notch called for in the plans would work if you could magically teleport the tail into position).
It seems my hardware kit was missing two bolts for the horizontal stabilizer and all the nut plates for the vertical tail.
Brake system parts
These parts are for the brake cables. The piece on the left attaches to the brake handle on one end and a pulley on the other to pull the brake cable. It is in the shot for convenience. The part bolted to the engine mount gives the cables a solid place to go through the firewall before twisting off towards each brake.
I was afraid I’d need to either get an extremely small right angle drill or remove the engine mount from the plane to get the cable guide drilled into position. Fortunately, I was able to mark the hole with my very flexible 12″ pilot drill bit on the top of the mount. Then I drilled up from the bottom through the nut-access-hole in the mount.
Battery box
Were I to build this again, I’d probably make it about 1/8″ smaller in all dimensions. I was able to push the sides inward when mounting on the firewall (as suggested in the plans) for a snug fit. The “lid” pushes the battery snugly against the firewall. There is a pretty big gap on the front side of the battery, but the battery doesn’t seem like it will be going anywhere–even at 6 G’s. Maybe this will help with cooling?
A couple of rivets were tricky to get to from the engine side of the firewall so I installed them from the cockpit side.