Today, Sunday, I enlisted the help of an unsuspecting Rupert to help with a trial fit of the tailplane. It took significantly longer than I anticipated. First problem was fitting the control brackets around the spar. Somehow I have lost a couple of bolts, so these were just bolted on temporarily with one rear bolt per side - you can see this in Picture 3.
Second problem was fitting the counterweights. These need to be final drilled to size so that the bolts would go through. In fact neither task was necessary for checking the alignment of the tailplane! And the delay meant that rain almost stopped play.
The third problem is bolting on the tailplane, with a selection of washers that need to be inserted. Gravity helps them to fall to the floor, and superglue only works if you can slide the tail into place without knocking the washers off. Next time I will build a stable platform for the tail at exactly the correct height and slowly move it forward into position.
Anyway, Pictures 1 and 2 show the tail in place. A trial fitting of the tail fairing (the purpose of the exercise), showed me that some trimming of the tailplane skins is required to obtain an adequate clearance. I marked the points for trimming with a sharpie pen, and just had time to dismantle everything again in time for tea.
