Speed Brake Cutout

The majority of the speed brake work was done during our visit to the factory’s Head Start program. After taking inventory of our parts and getting the doors and keel off of the airplane, we cut the indicated door out of the bottom center of the fuselage. As with all cut outs of this type, […]

Rear Aileron Control Bracket

In this section we mounted the front aileron control torque tube support bracket on the inside of the keel, centered in the whale tail, but down about 5/8″ (this measurement isn’t really that critical for Fixed Gear aircraft). We also mounted the Roll Trim motor through the whale tail, and the control bracket to the […]

Nose Access Cover

These are now pre-molded at the factory. We’ve cut the 5/8″ lip for the flange onto the fuselage, and sanded the door to fit. We have done some finishing work with Cabosil, filling the void between the hatch and the flange. This is accomplished by duct taping the cover and the pressing it down into […]

Assemble Rudder Pedals

OBSOLETE. These pedals were replaced when we upgraded to the Cleveland brakes with the toe-brake option. Assembling the rudder pedals is a pretty straightforward exercise in connect-the-dots. Of note is the fact that the back of the pedal has an arm that actuates the brake on one side of the plane for steering on the ground (the nose wheel […]

Install Panel

The panel attachment brackets were laid up as part of the fast build fuselage. The screw and nut plate were not installed, but we will hold onto this to see if we use the factory panel or not (we’re considering a carbon fiber panel). We have installed the factory panel in the expectation that we […]

Initial Canard Fit

During Head Start week we fitted the canard. First we leveled the plane, and then progressively sanded underneath the canard until it just rested on the canard bulkhead, the we checked it’s incidence. Once the incidence was right we pilot drilled for the lift tab bolts. This section recommends trimming the elevators to fit the […]