Empennage tips
Today was a landmark day. I went over 2000 hours on the project. Insane. When I started, I was really hoping to finish in 1800 hours. I’m close at this point and will finish before 2100 flips over. A lot of that time was making mistakes and figuring things out. I could build another plane much quicker. Another large chunk of time went into customizations like the throttle quadrant that I’m not sure were worth the extra time, at least at this point. Maybe after I’m flying I’ll value them more.
Today, I just with both feet into the process of fitting the empennage tips. I trimmed the rudder tip with the band saw and belt sander. My dad held it in position, and I drilled and clecoed it in place.
After installing the rudder on the VS, I was able to trim the VS and then drill it as well. I still need to close off the end.
We then started in on the right elevator tip. It was fairly easy to trim it to fit, but then I remembered that the counterbalance needed trimming. I started using a hack saw, but quickly moved over to the band saw to trim it. We installed the elevator on the HS, and I then filed away on the counterbalance until it was almost balanced. I left a little extra to account for paint.
The plane is looking really cool with the empennage installed.