vertical stabilizer – PH-MNX

Empennage Elevator Attach

ph-mnx — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 21:26:26 +0000

Together with my dad, we finished the Empennage kit today, by attaching the Elevators to the Horizontal Stabilizer. The counter balance weight arm of the Elevator does not fit in the Horizontal Stabilizer. Hence we have to trim the Horizontal Stabilizer, until it fits.

Before trimming we drill a hole in the corner, because snipping into a corner will result in crackling. By drilling a hole, we prevent stress in the Aluminum. Now we can use the left and right snips to trim the Horizontal Stabilizer.

On both sides we had the “First time right”. The Elevators fitted perfectly in the trimmed Horizontal Stabilizer.

After fastening the hinges and drilling the center hinge holes in the Elevator holes, we could finally attach the Elevators to the Horizontal Stabilizer. Look at the size of this part.

So after 129 hours the Empennage is finished. That is to say, I didn’t do the fairings of the Rudder and the Elevators, but as mentioned before, I’ll pick this up as I do the fairings of the Wings.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0/0

Video

Empennage Rudder attach

ph-mnx — Sun, 14 Jan 2018 21:24:11 +0000

Attaching the Rudder to the Vertical Stabilizer starts with inserting the hinges with the right depth into the Rudder. The drawings note the distance, however it is important that all three hinges align, in order to get a smooth moving Rudder.

Once the hinges are inserted I can start fitting the Rudder to the Vertical Stabilizer. It takes several times to attach and detach it again and adjust the hinges. I found that if I set the top and bottom hinge I can adjust the middle to align all three of them.

After hinge alignment I fastened the bolts and here is the attached Rudder to the Vertical Stabilizer in the correct position.

This part can now be shelved for when I start working on the fairings. The nice part is that the counter balance weight arm of the Rudder fits perfectly into the Vertical Stabilizer skin cutout.

The counter balance weight arm of the Elevators however do not fit into the Horizontal Stabilizer skin cutout. Strange, because I don’t see why Van’s cannot prepare that properly (just is with the Vertical Stabilizer). So I inserted the hinges in the Elevators, but did not have enough time to start trimming the skin.

Next time I’ll trim the skin and attach the Elevators to the Horizontal Stabilizer.

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets: 0/0

Video

Vertical Stabilizer Final Assembly

ph-mnx — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 20:43:17 +0000

In the morning we finished the vertical stabilizer. I figured out that riveting the skin to the rear spar is hard, because the rivets of the spar doubler are in the way.
The trick is the to keep the yoke of the squeezer just above those spar doubler rivets.

The afternoon we spent on the start of the rudder. I forgot to capture the “classic” horizontal/vertical stabilizer photo, so I’ll make that picture latter and paste it here.

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets: 147/3

Video

Vertical Stabilizer Clean and Prime

ph-mnx — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 20:25:30 +0000

I’m improving on the video’s. Last time I added audio and this time I start with a small leader to give some context.
It’s Prime Time!
One of the tasks I still need to improve. This time I figured out the settings on my paint spray gun.

First step is cleaning (specifically de-greasing) all the parts (both ribs and skin). The nice part is I can do this while sitting on my stool.

I tried to make a video of the priming process, but It was mainly my back, so I clipped it short.
Using the paint spray gun is an art and I don’t have that skill yet. But the quality is sufficient for the inside of the plane.

According to some builders, priming is useless and just adds weight. Others claim it is a necessity in some climates. Well I think it looks great.

After priming, I can start again with cleco-ing the spars and riveting the spar doubler and hinge brackets of the rudder to it.

Very productive day, next session I can probably finish the vertical stabilizer and start with the rudder.

With this progress I have to start thinking on ordering the wings. I thought I would do this in 2018, however with the 8 weeks lead-time of Van’s Aircraft, I might run idle.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 115/2

Video

Vertical Stabilizer Match-Drilling

ph-mnx — Sun, 22 Oct 2017 17:40:52 +0000

The vertical stabilizer is much less work (and in my opinion much easier) than the horizontal stabilizer. Which begs the question, “why don’t the plans start with the vertical stabilizer”. Anyway, together with my dad we started with the vertical stabilizer. Fitting and cleco-ing all the pieces together went very fast.

With two persons the assembly and match-drilling is easy. When everything is drilled, we dissembled the vertical stabilizer again and while I was dimpling the skin, my dad did all the deburring and edge cleaning.

The bottom part of the vertical stabilizer’s rear spar needs to be flush. Again we could parallelize the jobs, mhile I was counter sinking the rear spar doubler, my dad was dimpling the rear spar.

We’ve done all the match-drilling and dimpling in just 4 hours. Next time I can prime all the parts and then final assembly of the vertical stabilizer.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 0