Last Modified February 2nd1999

End of a tail (Well almost, part deux)

January 1st - 5th No building. Away with the family

January 6th After spending some time attempting to get the cables from the swing arm to the tailwheel free enough that I was comfortable with their movement I came to the conclusion that I was working outside of my "comfort zone". In order to establish a straight enough line so that there was little or no friction I was having to take away the side of the fuselage closer and closer to the area that was supporting the tailwheel spring. At 5cm I decided I was unhappy with what I was doing and have decided to abandon the swing arm and go back to the Europa XS design. I suppose I could have spent some more time on the arm and had a chat to Graham Singleton (the designer) again but in the end I felt that I had spent enough time on the tail and want to get on.

To clean up the work I had done I first removed the swing arm and scuff sanded both sides of the bulkhead. I also scuff sanded the area aft of the tailwheel spring arm support and the area on the outside of the aircraft where the cables had exited.

I laid up two layers of bid on the outside and covered these with peel ply then applied flox from the inside and peel plyed over the flox. I applied two layers of bid over the hole in the sternpost where the rudder arm exited and also against the rear face of the bulkhead and again floxed against these surfaces before applying peel ply over the flox.

I turned my attention to the rudder where I fitted a block of foam into the recess where the rod arm would be terminated if I had continued and then laid up two layers of bid over this. I laid up the four layers of bid in the base of the rudder for the rudder plate.

At this time of year the standard ampreg hardener sets the resin in about three hours so when the resin was hard enough I removed the peel ply from the flox areas and glassed over the flox. The inner side of the sternpost received three layers lapping onto the sides of the fuselage, the bulkhead front received two layers again lapping onto the sides and then I finished with a four layer set immediately aft of the tailwheel support lapping up both sides and the sternpost.

The rudder plate support had also set so I drilled out the holes in it and mounted nutplates to the plate before floxing the plate into place.

Last job for the day was to phone Chris at Europa and order a new tailwheel fork which I had cut as part of Graham's mod.

While I was on the phone to Europa I discussed the use of dual fuel filters with Andy who informed me that the mod with the two filters directly before the fuel selector was not appropriate to the 914 as it already had a dual filter system. I am sure that I can find a good home for the dual filter mod kit that I bought!

January 7th Did the four bid lay-up over the rudder plate and peel plyed the surface.

I made up the short tailwheel cables and reterminated the main rudder cables. The route of the cables with the XS tailwheel mod is at a different angle to the route taken by the cables with Grahams mod so I removed the guides that I had inserted in the counterbalance guide by heating up the redux with a hairdryer. Having done that I drilled out the holes in the rear bulkhead for the cable guides and inserted short lengths of plastic tube into the holes.

While I was playing waiting for the resin to set I made up a small right angled bracket to hold the connector for the trim motor and mounted this to the bulkhead with a bolt running through the bulkhead into a nutplate fixed to the bracket. I fitted the mating connector and fitted the cable to the cable tie mounts that I had previously run in a line forward from the bulkhead.

I primed the pieces of metal used in the tailwheel mod and at the same time primed the door handles which I made many months ago.

With the back of the aircraft open I refitted the trim tab guides using flox to cement them in place and then laying up one layer of bid fore and aft.

Once the glass on the rudder had set to trim stage I trimmed the glass back.

In order to fit the rudder drive arm stop it was necessary to drill out the pilot holes in the rudder hinges and rudder out to their final 3/16" size. I clecoed the fuselage top and fin back on and remounted the rudder. I needed to trim the starboard edge of the fuselage back a bit more so I did that first then drilled out the holes before removing the top and fin.

The tailwheel spring needs to be floxed into place as part of the mod but once it is floxed in place it is difficult to do a neat paint job at the base of the sternpost. I am going to paint the lowest six inches of the stern closeout prior to floxing the spring into place so, having masked a small area around the spring hole, I applied the first layer of glass primer. This area is fully hidden so I didn't bother doing any surface filling within the closeout.

January 8th Trimmed the port rudder stop so that the rudder was limited to 30 degrees travel to the left. Mounted the starboard rudder stop, marked it out and trimmed it to limit travel to 30 degrees. Now came the fun bit. I drilled a hole in the sternpost lined up with the rudder pivot and fed the port cable through. It was immediately obvious that this hole was too high so I drilled another one a centimetre or so lower. I checked the angles of the cables with my spirit level both fore and aft of the bulkhead and then opened the hole in the bulkhead downwards until I had the same angle both sides. I adjusted the cable run slightly as it passed the counterbalance stop and bonded in a new support tube. This was needed in order to keep the turnbuckle clear of the base of the aircraft.

I made a best guess as to where the starboard cable would emerge from the aircraft side and cut a small slot. I played around with the cable exit for quite a while and also extended the bulkhead hole outboard to get a better cable run. I used a continuous piece of tube from in front of the bulkhead to its exit point from the aircraft. I bonded this tube into place with flox, using peel ply outside of the aircraft to define a nice shape. While I had some flox mixed I also floxed around the fuel filler, once again covering the flox with peel ply to define the shape.

January 9th As I have run out of nicopress sleeves I moved to the front of the aircraft. I cut the slot for the throttle lever arm, making sure I cut is short at first and then extending it to the correct size. I then mounted the throttle lever assembly using bolts as temporary fixings as I am going to make a plate to go over the centre of the console. The cables from the throttle were fed up over the top of the engine mount and attached with tie wraps in crossover fashion to prevent movement.

Ducking under the aircraft I attached the rudder cable support blocks to the ply inserts. I have not yet added the forward blocks that keep the cables clear of the mounting frame as I have not yet determined how far back the pedals will travel in normal operation and I am a bit uncertain as to whether the nicopress sleeve on the starboard cable will clear the frame at this time.

January 10th Made up the mounting block for the fuel cutoff valve. Having played around with the position of the valve on the tunnel floor I came to the conclusion that raising the valve by another half inch would improve clearance between the rudder cables and the fuel lines. At the same time I modified the position of the indicator so that when fuel was flowing to the engine the pointer would be forward, reserve to the left and off to the rear or right. I carefully checked the position of the valve ensuring that the handle was free to rotate and that I could actually grab it easily while sitting in the pilots position. I also noted that for the 914 engine the outlet points aft so this was taken into consideration when mounting the block. Once I was happy with the position I bonded the block into place and then did a two ply bid lay-up over it.

The manual states that an indicator disk is required to sit over the valve. This disk needs to be around the same length as the arm which meant I needed a disk of around 10cm diameter. Now it just so happens that there is a major industry making 10cm diameter disks so I grabbed a couple of old CD ROMS, bonded them together so that the none printed sides were outermost and then filed out the hole until it fitted over the lever.

While the resin was hardening I set up my wings so that the spars were vertical and then bonded alignment blocks to the wings ready for the incidence setup process. I flipped over the port wing and cut out the hole for the new pitot/static assembly and made up the ply mounting block.

I fitted the outlets to the valve and then, once the resin had hardened, mounted the valve to the block. I cut two lengths of fuel hose and fitted these between the tank outlet and the valve. The CD's were slipped over the valve and the whole assembly bolted into place.

January 11th Continued work on the fuel lines. I am finding that it is really important to think about which way the fuel line clamps go on the hose otherwise they restrict the positioning of the hose. The other thing is that the manual really doesn't give much detail about how the hoses are to be run so some experimenting was in order. The pictures shown above were taken once I had decided on how the hoses should be run for my aircraft. I am not having the fuel sight come into the pilot area, preferring instead to have it aft of the seat on the port side so it is visible when filling the tank. The capacitance gauge and fuel flow meter will be my primary in flight measuring devices. Interestingly enough this made the routing of the fuel lines simpler.

January 12th No building, working in Wellington

January 13th After further input from Graham, the swing arm is going back in! The secret to the tailwheel moving freely is to use stainless steel tubes and not to tension the springs. [Remember, I didn't have the instructions for this, being the proud owner of one of the prototypes]. Refitting the arm proved just how simple the mod to the mod really is to fit and within two hours I had most of the bits in place. I am still missing some bits to finish it off so I'll carry on at the front.

January 14th Laid in the engine fuel return line. This connects to the fuel drain which comes off the starboard (reserve) tank area though in my aircraft this travels along the port side of the aircraft as it was easier to lay it in that way.

January 15th No building

January 16th Bonded in tie wrap holders onto the base of the fuselage. The foam backing on these is pretty useless so I added a thin layer of 5 minute epoxy to ensure that they wouldn't move. Worked on the rudder. This is set up in the same way as the original Europa configuration except with the drive coming off the swing arm. Setting this up requires quite a bit of patience as the rudder fitting has to be set in the correct place with 5 minute epoxy and then tested. If it is in the wrong place then the whole positioning and gluing process has to be repeated.

Just for reference, this is how I have attached the cables to the swing arm. An AN115-21 shackle terminated the cable. The shackle is attached to the arm with an AN3-5A bolt, washer and locknut. A hole is then drilled above the locknut and a cotter pin fitted through the bolt. The shackle and bolt assembly work as one and freely swivel within the hole in the arm.

January 17th I made up the wheel bay bulkhead. This proved to be quite a time consuming task as no profile is provided. I worked out the profile of the starboard side using a piece of paper, transferred this to card and then made a mirror image on card. Sliding the two past each other gave me the rough shape which I then checked before transferring it to plywood. Both surfaces will be glassed and support brackets made out of angle aluminium will be made to allow this to be removed when required for maintenance.

January 18th Did the lay-up in the rudder fitting hole. Found that I almost (as in less than mm to spare) didn't make the hole tall enough to get the fitting into the hole after the lay-up had been done. I suppose I could say that it is a perfect fit in the hole :-)

January 19th Having done the lay-up I find that the rudder movement is no longer correct - aaaaaaagh! The positioning of the rudder fitting is very sensitive. If found that I had to grind back the lay-up on the hinge side and start the alignment process again. This is a long and slooooow process.

January 20th This is getting frustrating. Getting the position of this block correct is a right pain. Decided the best way to establish the position was to build a flox bed then grind away the surface 1mm at a time until I had the right position and then grind away another 1mm to allow for the glass.

January 21st No building, working in Christchurch.

January 22nd Tried another three positions and finally have one that works. Laid up the glass again. Bonded some cable tie plates into the tunnel with 5 minute epoxy.

January 23rd Glued the fitting back over the glass, held my breath and tested the rudder movement. It works, it works! After seventeen attempts I finally have a rudder that moves 32 degrees each way and has equal movement both sides. The rudder movement has to lie between 30 and 32 degrees so I am just on the outer limit but that is fine. Did glass lay-up to lock the fitting in place. Glassed one surface of the bulkhead and started work on making up a support for the transponder aerial.

January 24th Fitted the T connector into the port fuel drain and brought the fuel pipe out of the side of the tunnel into the port baggage bay area.

January 25th Cleaned up some of the surface of the rudder where resin had built up around the lay-up. While I was doing this I built up some "blobs" of flox around the leading edges of the cutout. I will sand these back later to give me a rounded hard edge. Removed the swing arm assembly (yes it does fit through the access hole!) and added short cables between the arm and the spring. I did have the springs connected to the arm with the clip supplied with the spring however I noted some interference between the spring and the bracket at full deflection so I replaced this with the smallest cable length possible. Checked all of the rudder cable sleeves with my nicopress gauge and added heatshrink to all of the cable ends. Removed the tailwheel arm and applied primer over the silvershield in the base of the tail closeout.

Ran the static tube within the port wing. I am running the static out to the wing tip and then back to the root along the wing lighting tube that I had earlier bonded into place within the wing. The modification to the pitot static has you run both the pitot and static along the flap closeout but I was uncomfortable with the clearances in the closeout to run both tubes that way. Running the tubes via the wing tip almost doubles the length and as I didn't want to add a damping effect into the pitot I am only running the static via the tip and will run the pitot via the closeout.

January 26th - 28th No building, working in Singapore.

January 29th Painted the lower section of the inside of the closeout making sure that an area around the tailwheel arm was left clear of paint. Refitted the swing arm and rechecked the spring clearance around the arm. With the arm now fully bolted in place the interference problem disappeared so I went back to using the clips. Fitted the turnbuckles to the other end of the spring and spent some time trying to work out if I had enough clearance before the bulkhead. Decided to query Graham about this. Reassembled the rudder cables and adjusted them the give me 40mm clearance in front of the firewall. As this mod makes the cable stop a very definite one I think I will reduce the spacing to 30mm which is still well clear of the minimum spacing of 15mm.

January 30th Carried on laying out the fuel pipes. I repositioned the fuel drains some 8 inches aft of their original position where they clashed with both the fuel pump location and the battery which has its centre 72 inches aft of the firewall. I reduxed the drain fittings in place as well as reduxing the tailwheel arm and forward rudder cable rubbing blocks. Later in the day when the redux had set I fitted the drain pipes to the fuel drain fittings.

Graham has come to the conclusion that having the turnbuckles for the tailwheel inside the aircraft makes it almost impossible to adjust them once the top is on so I will cut the tailwheel cables, remove the aft arm fittings and re make the tailwheel cables with the turnbuckles positioned externally.

January 31st Dragged the fuselage outside and, in between explaining to passers by that it really was an airplane, worked on the bulkhead. Best comment was from a 4 year old girl who, while walking by, said in a lovely clear voice "Well, well, well. Look at that. An airplane". Kind of made my day.

The bulkhead required quite a bit of sanding back to get it to the point where it didn't cause bulges in the structure. The tricky bit is establishing the height of the support blocks once the bulkhead is trimmed. I may end up shoving a small child into the back of the aircraft to assist here :-)

Didn't quite get to finish the tailwheel.