Feb 21, 2024     Section 11 - Empennage Attachment 5 - (2.5 hours)       Category: Sec 11 Emp A

Today I torqued and sealed the vertical stabilizer, and installed the rudder, rudder cables, and tail navigation/strobe light. Everything working perfectly.

https://youtu.be/KRvewpgpY08

  Feb 19, 2024     Section 11 - Empennage Attachment 4 - (2.9 hours)       Category: Sec 11 Emp A

I stopped working on the empennage attachment section back on August 5th, 2021 and now it is time to close that section! Very exciting to start the final assembly.

The work started by organizing and securing the tail harness. This bundle of wires includes the elevator trim wires and the rudder wires. They have to stay safely clear of the elevator pushrod and with a healthy slack to avoid poor connections. As this airplane has only electrical trim, it is critical to make sure these wires are safe and not tensioned. I installed an extra layer of shrink tube and ran the wires through the back plate to where the rudder will be attached.

Next, I am permanently installing the horizontal stabilizer. 6 bolts, AN4s, torqued to spec and sealed. No surprises or issues here.

The next step is to attach the vertical stabilizer. I started by attaching the ELT speaker at the bottom of the stabilizer and coated the stabilizer front attachment with an anti-seize compound, as per instructions. I don't know what is up with this setup but I assume the stabilizer will oscillate around the forward bolt attachment which is torqued with castle nut and cotter pin.

My first job at the hangar proved to be not as efficient as when I was working at home. Firstly, taking the car to go pee already consumes a few minutes... secondly, simply the size of the hangar makes me walk a few seconds to go grab a tool. So I couldn't;t do much. Didn't have time to torque down the rudder but it is temporarily in place with loose nuts. For the rudder attachment, I decided to put 332 washers on the outside bolts at the bottom of the fuse because it would be impossible for me to torque those from inside the tail cone. At least with the experience and tools I have.

On a final note, check the first picture. I guess I had a minor transportation issue and luckily it was only a couple of damaged bolts. the skin and nut plates are totally fine. Also, in picture 484.16 you will see a scuffed surface around a bolt hole. I did that to provide a grounding connection for the tail lights.

https://youtu.be/fxf3uVI41Oo

  Aug 05, 2021     Section 11 - Empennage Attachment 3 - (3 hours)       Category: Sec 11 Emp A

During this work session I have adjusted the travel angles for rudder and elevator. On the rudder I had to add one sheet of 40 thousands aluminum, as offset tab, to reduce the gap between rudder and right elevator. On the left side, a minor filling was enough to make both sides match in travel. The fabrication of the offset tab was straight forward except that I had to make an extra indentation on the tab to accommodate rudder skin.

After adjusting both sides, I crossed check the travel ends with Vans published limits of 30/30 degrees as minimum travel and 35/35 as maximum for rudder. I did that using an compass app sitting on top of the rudder. Worked perfectly. With 23mm gap on both sides I got 35/35 degrees of travel. (check picture "57.4")

On the elevators, despite already within range, i wanted to increase travel since I was at the lower limit. I used a drummer tool with sand barrel tip to grind down a bit of the material on the stoppers.

For up elevator, I went from 25 degrees up to 29. Van's recommends between 25 and 30. For down elevator, I went from 21 to 24. Van's limits are between 20 and 25.

I decided to leave 1 degree of buffer for future material degradation.

After achieving the desired travels I will disassemble the entire structure and give a better finish to the elevator stoppers and prime it.

I did primed the offset tab before riveting it to the rudder stopper.

https://youtu.be/qEar6-c-yIE

  Jul 27, 2021     Section 11 - Empennage Attachment 2       Category: Sec 11 Emp A

Van's responded to my support request informing that it is possible to add further travel by filling the stoppers as long as they are not filled past a certain threshold and the corners have to be rounded on a 5/16 radius.

Attached email exchange and recommendations I have received.

Basically my elevator is already within the limits and I shouldn't need to do anything. I want to give a bit more range though. at least a couple of degrees.

On the rudder I will have to do both, increase the gap on 1 side and decrease on the other. both in order to reach the 19.05mm gap required.

Thank you Sterling.

  Jul 26, 2021     Section 11 - Empennage Attachment 1 - (13.3 hours)       Category: Sec 11 Emp A

Despite the empennage attachment is not a step needed at this point of the build, I decided to give it a go and see how parts are fitting. I have a long wait ahead before wing kit arrives so I figured I could use this time to test fit the empennage components and work on the fiber parts.

I started assembling the elevators. Each half at a time. Installing the rod end bearings was really straight forward and following the plans measures it end up perfectly aligned. The throw of the surfaces are beyond the required -25 +30 degrees but at 32 degrees up elevator, I found some rubbing material against the aft elevator spars on the bearing attachment horn. A little bending on rolled aluminum (elevator leading edge) solved the rubbing.

Secured bear rods using a jam nut but I just learned afterwards that these should also be torqued. It should be torqued as “shear” nuts and following Ac 43.13, it recommends 90-110in-lb. I will have to redo that after I disassemble the empennage.

On step 1 page 11-03, the measures on the wood spacer Van's tells us to build are not correct. 5.8mm is not 2 inches. Minor details.

Moving forward, I drilled the horns, plans are perfect detailing the process. I got not binding whatsoever but the alignment of the horns was amazingly off… almost 1/4in…. do to that, my elevator throws were reduced too +25.3 -21.6. check picture “elevator throw”. I will ask Van's on work around for that…

Next step was to install vertical stabilizer. And I realized the attachment plate that holds the forward portion of the vertical stabilizer in alignment was not primed… I wasted prime on the last session and this part was left unnoticed. So, I had to clean and prime it.

Installation of vertical stabilizer was smooth. For now, I have not applied anti-seize paste. I also haven't done any wiring related task as the connectors won't fit through the passages after assembled. I will have to go back to these tasks at the final assembly.

When installing the rudder, it was a little hard to put the bolts on the joints and hold the rudder at the same time. Strongly recommend a helper here.

Rudder also came in smoothly with no binding whatsoever. When checking the throw though, I was not able to reach the same minimum distance from elevator edge. Plans calls for “minimum 19.05mm” and on my build I am getting 25.78mm to the left and 16.08 to the right. I don't quite understand if minimum means “not less than 19.05” or “at least 19.05” so I will call on build support on this one too. (refer to picture “56.43”).

Overall, very happy with results so far and very impressed with the size of this thing on the garage after all parts are put together. I will have to disassemble everything and store the parts to be able to work on the wings.

30ml of primer used

https://youtu.be/QwIijxLJASU