|
|
|
|
Buck's RV-8
|
Date: 5-1-2008
|
Number of Hours: 3.10
|
Manual Reference:
|
Brief Description: Mounting HS
|
|
A few days ago, I clamped the horizontal stabilizer to the fuselage, and today I actually began the process of mounting it. I began by leveling the fuselage and clamping two legs to the false spars. These will prevent the fuselage from moving around the roll axis. Next, I fabricated the 1/8" spacers that go under the front spar of the tail, and taped them into position. I marked the centerline of the fuselage and stab for reference. To establish the spacing under the aft spar, I used a 3/16" drill bit.
I checked the level of the stabilizer, and it was just about perfect. (A note about accuracy: You can really make yourself crazy by using a digital level and trying to eliminate the last tenth of a degree of error, but frankly, I think that's just wasting time. The second picture below shows a perfect result on the bubble level, and a 0.1 degree error or the digital level. You just have to let it go -- 0.1 degree is WELL within the manufacturer's guidelines. These airplanes were designed long before digital levels were invented!)
To get the tail perpendicular to the fuselage, I measured from a particular rivet on each side of the stabilizer skin to a centerline rivet just on the skin behind the cockpit. Each side ended up at 104-11/16"
I clamped the forward spar to the deck with a C-clamp (see photo #3), and marked the locations for the four forward AN-3 bolts. I centerpunched them and drilled the first one with a 12" drill bit. It came out great. More tomorrow.
|
|
Longitudinal-axis stabilzers clamped to the false spars.
|
|
Digital versus analog. Good enough!
|
|
The shim keeps the handle of the C-clamp above the spar.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2001-2024 Matronics. All Rights Reserved.
|
