Monday March 12, 2007
Elevators Mounted to HS (Horizontal Stabilizer)
3.0 Hours

Tonight, with Emily's assistance, I was able to get the elevators mounted onto the horizontal stabilizer. This looks awesome!

On the outside edges, where the elevator counterbalance arms come up alongside the HS, some of the HS skin has to be trimmed away. I carefully did that, leaving the minimum 1/8" gap all the way around.

In the center, part of the rear HS spars block the control horns from moving through their full range of movement. This is one of those areas where I think the plans are really rather silly. These trims would be simple before the HS is put together, but are quite tricky now. You have to be extremely careful not to nick or cut away any of the reinforcing bars on the HS.

We mounted the elevators once more to check for problems. I hadn't trimmed away enough in the center for the control horn on the right elevator. Otherwise everything worked out fine.

I got out my smart level and checked the actual travel of my left elevator.

I've definitely got more than the necessary travel. Once these are mounted to the fuselage, they will have stops that prevent them from exceeding the maximum travel.

At this point, I'm calling the horizontal stabilizer and elevators done, until it comes time to assemble and fine-tune things during the finishing kit. I could drill the control horns for the center bearing, but there's no harm in waiting to do this very important final task.

I need to get serious about finishing up my rudder--then the empennage will be officially finished (for now). I'm not going to do the fiberglass tips until later. I really don't have a clue about fitting them or mounting them at this point. I think I'd rather do all of that work at once, later on.

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