Return to the Flaperons, and Tow Bar Install

When we last left the flaperons I thought they were ok but I wasn’t really confident so during the week I found some more dimension specs and set about re-measuring the various deflections. Something that immediately became obvious was that I need to mark the location of the digital angle meter so I wasn’t picking up little changes in the top skin. A bit of masking tape did the trick

Digital Angle Location Marker

Several measurements and some more grinding down of the vertical control rod space had the flaperons very nicely rigged. Level flight is still a little off centre-stick though, will just be something I get used to and learn to love.

There are two control stops next to the control rod but I’ve already installed the bolts there along with the plastic fairlead for the rudder cables. So we had to remove the bolts, measure the right place for the stops and put it back together. Here’s the passenger side

First flaperon control stop

The pilot side is not so easy. The plastic fairlead is in the way of the control stop so it needs to be trimmed a little. We can’t remove it from the plane because the rudder cable goes through it and it is attached so we probably have to unrivet it, slide it down the cable and then hack at it with snips. Or… Allen says he has some blade tool that he thinks he can get in there to trim it in place. We shall see.

For the tow bar, there is a metal tube that goes horizontally through the nose gear and then a bolt goes through the nose gear perpendicular to the tube and through the centre. So it really is just a case of accurately measuring the holes and drilling them.

Starting the tow bar install

The hole in the control tube needs to be drilled which we both agreed was a bit cheap. Here is everything installed

Tow bar installed

and with the tow bar on

Tow bar

For a wider view, here am I pretending to move the plane, not sure what has happened to my eyes, maybe overcome with the emotion of it all.

Me and the tow bar

So that was a nice little side task. My only question now is how to carry the tow bar when flying, it is a bit big.

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