Brief Description: Empennage fairing fitting--glass & rudder work
We finished drilling the holes in the empennage fairing today and found that the flanges needed trimming radically. We did this using the Dremel wheel and sanding drum after the screws were in and now we have a near perfect fit. There were 2 small "tears" in the fiberglass toward the back so we mixed up a batch of epoxy and reinforced the tears. We then mixed some microballoons and filled a couple of low places on the wing tips..... We then got the rudder out and mounted it to check the alignment of the hinges and the center rod end will need to turned out a half a turn and then things should align OK. We then checked the rudder swing and we have 50 degrees on the right and 45 degrees on the left with the accepted swing of between 30 and 35 degrees. I called Van's and they said that one needs at least an inch of clearance off the elevators which we don't have on the right. He said that we could add some to the existing rudder stop or fabricate new rudder stops. We will try to add a small triangular piece of aluminum tomorrow to see how it looks and if we have any question, I went ahead and ordered some more angle to fabricate 2 new ones. The only problem with the making of new ones is that I used 2 CherryMax rivets to hold the old ones on and I understand that drilling out CherryMax are not fun........The Red Air Force is here at Waycross airport for the next 4 days with 30 or more Yak aircraft and Claude and I are doing to have trouble working on the plane when we want to see the Yaks performing.
