Since the empennage was built/rebuilt and closed off by the previous owner, Ray, I need to create some inspection ports. This will allow inspection for my comfort and for the satisfaction of the MD-RA inspector. In reality, I'm not worried as Ray's workmanship is really nice, but as mentioned, the ability to inspect is necessary.
Spoilers were originally installed on this plane. Any articles about the plane's flight characteristics mentioned that the spoilers were made inoperable. It's no surprise as the spoilers were mounted in front of the ailerons and likely impacted the roll control of the airplane. The spoilers were scissor type that opened above and below the wing like you'd see in a high performance sailplane. They are a real thing of beauty in the workmanship to make them. I suspect that when they opened them up though, they really scared themselves. I used to fly RC sailplanes and I was amazed at what an impact the small spoilers had on the glide ratio of the sailplane. The spoilers on the Dalotel covered a much larger portion of the wingspan and would have likely made the plane drop like an anvil, an anvil without any roll control. Pretty scary. By eliminating the spoilers and all the mechanism to run them, I'm shaving something like 20 lbs off the weight of the plane. Gotta love that.
There were a couple of inspection panels on the underside of each wing to allow inspection of the spoiler mechanism. Since I'm not going to install the spoilers in the rebuild, I thought it would be neat to reuse these inspection panels on the empennage. Unfortunately the original inspection plates are thicker than the skin on the empennage so I decided to make some new panels out of leftover mahogany ply from my last project. Inspection panels and the associated doublers are pretty easy first steps in the construction process. Of course, the doublers have to made up in two halves to fit through the inspection hole.