Saturday July 12, 2025
Elevator Balancing and Rigging
(1.7 Hours Center Fuselage, 3.3 Hours Empennage)
5.0 Hours Total

I drilled out some holes in the elevator counterweights to better balance them. I still left them a bit nose heavy to account for possible paint later. I think I will cap these holes with RTV or epoxy just so nothing can get stuck in them and interfere with elevator motion.

I bolted in the long aft elevator pushrod.

And bolted it to the bellcrank in the aft fuselage.

Then I spent a long time testing rigging with the control sticks in various positions. I would have liked to have the control stick vertical relative to the cockpit when neutral, but the front pushrod and the the control stick assembly do not allow for that. You have to have the stick somewhat forward at neutral.

I also had to file down this pushrod passthrough in the F-705 bulkhead as the pushrod was rubbing on it. Apparently this is quite common.

Then I noticed that there was quite a bit of play or loose-ness to the control sticks in the pitch direction. I spent a while trying to fix that. I was somewhat successful on the pilot's stick just by tightening the through-bolt, but now it rubs a bit in the roll direction. I will take them apart at some point in the future and experiment some more. Apparently some degree of play/slop is common.

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