Brief Description: Drilled the Rear Spar of the Horizontal Stabilizer
Called Van's and talked to Ken about the HS incidence angle measurement. I told him that after following the plans, I am about 0.4 degrees off from zero. His reply was to "drill it before it moves". It was fine and the only difference will be that my aircraft may trim slightly different than another RV-8. He mentioned that the pre-drilled fuselage takes care of most of these issues if the plans are followed by using the called for 3/16" spacer under the rear spar of the HS.
Drilled the rear spar holes to #12. Need to updrill the right lower hole to an AN-4 bolt because the drill got away from me when the bit grabbed the metal. The hole has some play. Of note, when I pulled out the 3/16" spacer drill bit under the rear spar, I noticed that the aft deck was flexed slightly by the weight of the rear spar weight on the bit. The F-811D Spacer/Control Stop that was supposed to be below the aft deck had been removed earlier. Without this spacer, the aft deck was able to flex slightly, thus the 0.4 degree offset from zero incidence.
