Monthly Archives: August 2013

Trim Tab 3 (2.0 hrs)

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Today I met Mike at the hangar as he had agreed to give me a hand with the trim tab. I was able to complete the dimpling and countersinking of the skin and the spar, and match drill the hinge to the trim tab. Mike has several different thicknesses of hinge at the hangar and we used a slightly larger width to solve my edge distance issue from yesterday. Finally we set up the trim tab to align it with the elevator as shown below in the pictures. Unfortunately my bends on the end do not allow for the proper clearance alignment. The inboard edge is sticking out by approximately 1/8 inch.

Afterwards we flew to a fly-in at Smoketown Airport in PA. (You can see Mike’s post here.) Great flight, good food, and several cool aircraft on the ground. We also got the opportunity to see two other trim tabs to consider my issue. After that it was very apparent that my error is on the elevator tabs. I’ve bent them too close to the tab. My solution will be to cut the tabs off and install a riblet. I’m hoping to tackle that later this evening or tomorrow.

Here is the trim tab in line with the left elevator. 20130810-163508.jpg

And the deviation…20130810-163518.jpg

Mike on the ground in his RV-7 at Smoketown.20130810-164219.jpg

On base.20130810-164229.jpg

Just for fun I used my MotionX GPS on the iPhone to track our flight. Here are the screen shots. 212mph max. The average speed is a little bit low because I recorded during taxi and takeoff. The GPS signal dropped off at spots.. but heck, its just a cheap iPhone app. Did the trick for my purposes today. 20130810-164607.jpg

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A little bit of everything… (3.0 hrs)

This entry was posted in Elevators Empennage Plans on by

I took today off work, because, well I can.  So I started out working on the trim tab.  I didn’t get very far.  I match drilled the brackets shown here.20130809-175008.jpg

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Then I removed the pin from the hinge and carefully reviewed the plans.  The instructions state to clamp the hinge in place using the measurements on DWG 4.  I only see two measurements on DWG 4.  After I made sure those measurements were ok… they actually don’t make much sense… I clamped and drilled.  20130809-175026.jpg

The very first hole is shown here.  It is supposed to be, and is 1/4 inch from the edge as shown.  But the edge distance towards the back of the hinge doesn’t look good to me.  At this point I stopped and reviewed the plans again.  I don’t see anything that I’m missing.  Next stop VAF and Mike Bullock’s site.  From the pictures on Mike’s site, mine looks fine.  Except the edge distance.  I was thinking it was Saturday so I gave Mike a call.. in retrospect since its Friday he was probably at work.  Either way he agreed to meet me at the airport when he is next there to go over the trim tab.  This seems to be the part everyone has trouble with, so it’s best if Mike give’s me a hand, and his help is much appreciated. 20130809-175036.jpg

With Mike agreeing to help, I stopped work on the trim tab.  The other day I brought one of my white boards from my office to the shop to keep track of my “To Do” and “Shopping” lists.  I started on my to do list.20130809-175043.jpg

First up was finishing the few remaining rivets on the rudder.  Since I last did the rudder I’ve bought two tools that will allow me to complete this.  I had to pop rivet the last one, but I’m quite ok with that. 20130809-175050.jpg

This rivet in the corner of the elevator horn was a real beast to get to.  I tried several different setups with my squeezers with no luck, so I had to resort to banging the rivet with the gun and bucking bar.  The space was very tight and holding the bucking bar was difficult.  In the end, I got two proper rivets installed. 20130809-175058.jpg

Storage has been on my mind lately.  With the wings arriving at the end of the month, I’ve been clearing space and planning storage.  I temporarily attached the rudder to the vertical stab and hung them both back up. While I had the vertical stab down, I should have replaced the two rivets that need to be replaced, but of course, I forgot.  Soon…20130809-175107.jpg

I also moved the mounting bracket for the horizontal stab up much higher.  I’m planning to also temporarily attach the elevators to the stab for storage.  20130809-175114.jpg

More Wing Stand Building

This entry was posted in Plans Wings on by

Van’s Aircraft had sent a letter stating that my wings would ship the week of August 17th.  August 17th is a Saturday.  Who says the week of and refers to a Saturday?  I was confused… did they mean the week ending on the 17th, or was it a mistake and they meant the next week?  So before heading out to the shop I gave them a call.  Turns out it was a typo and they meant the week of the 19th.  They said items usually ship by Thursday  (August 27) and take 5 to 6 working days for Pennsylvania.  That means my wings should arrive sometime between the 28th and the 30th of this month.  I also let Barbara at Van’s know that I intended to pick the crates up at the local terminal and would not need door service.  She will call me when she’s ready to pick a shipping company.  This should save me some money.

Back to the shop. Tonight I finished the wing stand frames.  I will wait until I’m ready to hang the wings before installing the aluminum angle supports. This was a collosal pain in the ass to do by myself.  I had to clamp, level, adjust and drill while on a ladder… a second set of hands would have made this far easier and quicker, but its done now.

Here you can see the far side that is under the stairs.  There is still plenty of room to walk (especially for a short guy such as myself).  20130807-203143.jpg

There is enough room to open the garage door… just barely.  I moved the work benches over by the garage door. 20130807-203149.jpg

Here is the only post that didn’t line up with a floor joyce.  20130807-203157.jpg

My make shift garage door stop.  The last thing I need is to throw the garage door open and bang into the wing stand.  Who knows what catastrophe that might cause…20130807-203206.jpg

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Panorama of the completed stands.20130807-203237.jpg