Last Modified January 6th 1999

The End of a Tail (Well Almost!)

December 1st I selected a couple of pieces of 2 x 1 angle aluminium and clecoed one to each side of the tail to keep the three parts in line. I used three 3/16 inch clecos on each side and then supplemented these with 1/8 inch. I found that the 3/16 inch clecos needed an AN470-3 washer to back them otherwise they pulled out of the glass. I checked the trim line I had previously drawn on the tail and only had to adjust it inwards by 1mm to ensure that I would get a clean line from the tip to the base. I noted that the flange between the fuselage and the fin was causing the stern post to bend slightly so I got out the dremel and ground back a few lumps until I had a clean fit. At the same time I trimmed back the rear of the fuselage top a bit further and found that the stern post fitted a lot better. I clecoed the stern post in a couple of places ready for trimming back to my trim line.

December 2nd No building.

December 3rd Drilled the holes in the rudder for the hinges. Checked and then double checked the trim line on the starboard trailing edge.

December 4th Fitted the hinges to the rudder. Took the plunge and trimmed the starboard edge of the fuselage then lined up the rudder against the trimmed line. Once I had established the best position (with the top of the fin and rudder in line) I drilled one hole each for the hinges. I turns out I have filed back the indents for the hinges a little bit too far on the trailing edge so I'll fill those back later with a bit of flox to improve the looks. I filled them to the 3mm specified but they are just too deep and you can see the spaces between the hinge tangs. The hardest thing about the whole process was working out how to hold the rudder in line and drill the hinge hole without falling off the steps I was using to reach the top. This is definitely a two person job if you are going to do it easily. Once I had stopped drooling over my handiwork I trimmed the port trailing edge back to match the starboard edge. The port side is going to need more trimming in order to allow the rudder to move freely and I'll do this a few millimetres at a time until it is clear.

December 5th Trimmed the port side back. This ended up needing quite a bit of the edge taking off before I could confirm that I had 30-32 degrees of free movement to port. During the process of taking the edge off it was necessary to trim back the top edge of the rudder to allow the rudder to rise relative to the fuselage as it swings to port. All I did here was identify where it was striking the edge and then file that bit away, returning each time to trimming back the port trailing edge.

December 6th Bonded the sternpost into the lower fuselage. I used redux/flox for the bonding and clecos and clamps to keep the parts together. I reassembled the top and fin together with the angle aluminium to ensure that everything was going to set in line. While the sternpost was setting I cut out the slot in the rudder for the pushrod end bracket. I am also going to fit the XS lower arm support to the rudder just in case I need to change from the pushrod to the XS cable configuration at some time in the future.

(The workshop needs a tidy up again!)

December 7th No building, Carol's birthday.

December 8th Removed the top of the plane and checked the sternpost bonding. All looks good.

December 9th Laid up the cloth in the rudder indent and cut out the cloth for the tailwheel reinforcement lay-ups.

December 10th Laid up the tailwheel reinforcements. About twenty seconds into the lay-up it became obvious that my trim tab rod supports were going to get in the way so I cut them out of the aircraft and proceeded with the job. I don't know how people managed to do these lay-ups through an inspection hole as I had enough trouble doing them with the top open. A pair of rubber bands around the cuffs is mandatory here unless you want to get completed covered in resin. It took me about an hour to finish all of the lay-ups though there was a certain amount of grumbling that came out the workshop during that time!

December 11th Drilled the hole in the sternpost for the tailwheel arm. The lowest part of the back of the plane required a fair amount of filing back to allow the rod to sit correctly. I then made up the five ply pieces that will form the base for the tailwheel rod bolt bracket. These pieces have to be shaped to fit the curve of the fuselage base so quite a bit of trial and error was needed to get a good fit for all five. I used scraps of bid to act as spacers where the final lay-ups will go thus ensuring that I had my block height correct. Once all of the blocks were filed to shape I took them out, clamped them together and formed a chafer on the front and back edges.

December 12th As the weather was fine I decided to do some work outside. While rigging the wings I noted that the glass on the flat surface in the wing hole had been suffering some erosion from the spars as they were slid into place. In order to fix this and also to prevent the spar from sliding backwards I made up a couple of tufnol support plates. These I fixed to the support bracket with a pair of screws and rivnuts. I will also fit a pair of pop rivets through the thin flange later on once I buy some longer countersunk rivets. The blue area on the outer surface is SuperFil that I used to fill up a small indent that had been created when the cockpit module was fitted. This area, sanded back with 240 grit paper, is as smooth as the outer skin of the aircraft. I had planned to test the wing incidence today but the wind built up so I abandoned that thought.

December 13th Set up the tailwheel rod height. I followed the XS manual for this, setting the base of the threaded portion of the rod at 235mm below the base of the fuselage.

December 14th No building, Nathan's prize giving at school.

December 15th, 16th No building, working in Masterton. Logged up my 200th hour flying.

December 17th Cut out the cloth for the tailwheel rod support lay-ups.

December 18th No building, working in Brisbane.

December 19th Did the tailwheel support lay-up. I bedded each piece of plywood in flox before covering it with two pieces of bid. While the lay-up was setting I applied the first coat of paint to my tailwheel arm and flap drive rod.

December 20th Mounted the rudder pivot assembly on the rear bulkhead. I leveled the assembly then drilled 3/16" holes through the bulkhead. The assembly is mounted with AN3-7A bolts pushed through from the front with AN970-3 large washers under the bolt heads. I have only fitted temporary bolts at this stage as I want to confirm operation before finally bolting the assembly in place.

Applied the finish coat of paint to the pieces I worked on yesterday.

Fitted the port rudder cable. With the rudder pedal set 40mm aft of the firewall I set the pivot arm against its port stop then nicopressed the cable end on. I have used turnbuckles within the cable to allow for cable length adjustment. To prevent the cables riding off the pulleys I made U shaped retainers out of 2cm wide aluminium. These are attached to the bolt that holds the pulley with the AN970 washer inside of the retainer. The retainer is positioned so that if the cable rides out of the pulley it prevents it sliding up the side.

Fitted the starboard rudder cable. I followed the same procedure as with the port cable but noted that there was a lot on sponginess when the rudder pedal was depressed. It was spongy until the rudder cable freed itself from one of the engine frame bolt heads at which point it became totally slack! Much muttering from the workshop. Having confirmed that the cable is in fact two inches too long leaving too little to reterminate the end I have no option but to dump the cable and order new bits from the UK. I had hoped to have the rudder and tailwheel assembly complete by the end of the year but this mistake now prevents that from happening.

December 21st The instructions for the tailwheel modification have you bond the top metal plate of the support block on as part of the glass lay-ups. The XS manual has you bond the plate on later with redux and flox. As the XS procedure allows the spacing of the block to be carefully controlled I followed these instructions. I made up a batch of redux and bonded the plate in place. As the gap was slightly larger at the front than at the rear I used a couple of toothpicks to ensure that the plate was parallel with the bottom surface of the tailwheel arm.

I spent some time checking the movement of the bellcrank assembly and came to the conclusion that I needed to either increase the size of the lower spacer or change the ratio between the upper and lower spacers. This came about because I noticed that the nicopress sleeves occasionally caught on the lightening holes.

While I was checking the movement of the arm I also noticed that the rudder cables were rubbing on the pitch stop support. Luckily I had noticed that this was occurring in several other builders Europas and had taken the precaution of sliding a small length of tubing over the rudder cables before I fitted the cable terminations. I established a clear cable line then cut a small groove into the support before reduxing the tube into place. As I have turnbuckles in the cables aft of the pitch support I can still remove the pitch support if necessary. The turnbuckles also allow me to draw the cables forward for inspection when required of the area under the pulleys when required.

December 22nd Changed the position of the bellcrank within the rudder arm assembly by moving it upwards by 3mm. I also filed the bulkhead hole downwards a little. These two actions remover all of the rubbing and improved clearance all round.

December 23rd No building. Christmas shopping.

December 24th Went out to Aero Trading (www.propellor.com) to view the first of the Airmaster 912/914 constant speed hubs to come off the line. This new unit is a scaled down version of their successful Continental/Lycoming constant speed hub. The spinner in the photo below is mine! No building today - present wrapping.

December 25th No building, Christmas Day

December 26th, 27th No building, working in Wellington!!!

December 28th Fitted the control lines to the tailwheel. I had to estimate where these would exit the fuselage and then drilled holes at that spot. The next task was to open these holes up until there was no contact at any point of their travel. This proved to be quite a long task as I wanted to ensure that I had a neat appearance on the outside of the aircraft.

December 29th - 31st I was only able to do a little bit of work on the aircraft these days so carried on filing away at the cable holes!