Fuselage June 2008 Updates
June 22, 2008
Vertical Stab Install.... - 7.0 hrs

Today I rolled the plane out in front of the hangar and sit the vertical stabilizer in place to see if the first ceiling fan was going to have enough clearance. I had 18 inch drop tubes and used 12 inch. Still not enough clearance. I didn't want to run back to Lowes so I just cut off 4 more inches and drilled new holes and rehung the fans.

Next started mounting the VS. I drilled 2 of the bolt holes in the front mounting bracket for the VS. I clamped the VS to the rear bulkhead and measured the 7 and 12/32 from the bottom hinge to the top of the longeron. Now it is clear there tail is too tall for the hangar. I am going to have to come up with a way to raise the front wheel when the tail gets to the door frame. Since the main gear is more to the front off the center of the fuselage it would take about a 4 inch raise to get the tail to drop 6 to 8 inches. This would work so this may be the solution. There is not really a way to cut the door frame without weakening the door structure.

Not ready to do the final drilling on the VS so I temp installed the front roll bar and canopy frame. I am going to have to move some stuff around to setup a cutting table for the canopy next.




This website was built to document my work in compliance with the FAA requirements needed to certify my aircraft.
My experiences and comments are by no means to be considered as instructions on how to build any aircraft.