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Re: Europa-List: Re: Vertical play at stabilator tips

Subject: Re: Europa-List: Re: Vertical play at stabilator tips
From: Peter Zutrauen <peterz@zutrasoft.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2018 07:55:32
Great post Chris, thx!

I have made a steel frame build cradle for my canoe, so I am hoping the
alignment will not change enough with top-bonding to cause binding issues.
That said I was also planning on stabilizing the cockpit module prior to
bonding to minimize binding, so I am intrigued by your re-enforcing
strategy which I don't fully follow/understand. Could you send me some pics?

Cheers and thx,
Pete

On Mon, Oct 1, 2018 at 6:58 AM n7188u <chmgarb@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> :) Once again thanks to all for the advice. It is in moments like this
> during the construction of a kit plane that the support and encouragement
> from fellow builders is so important. I will move forward as is.
>
> To me, I deem smooth elevator control as a very important feature to
> achieving good landings in an airplane. When I had my Mooney (another
> airplane with not so great landing reputation [I'm building a mono]) the
> key to smooth landings was smooth elevator control. I dissasembled the
> entire pushrod system in that airplane (quite complex but neat) and rebuilt
> it to achieve smooth control and great landings every time ensued.
>
> It was an interesting learning experience to achieve this in the Europa. I
> understood the fuselage was flexible but I got down to a point where just
> adding one cleco could result in noticing binding (very slight). Probably
> not that critical but I was that picky. I ended up designing two small
> ribs. One behind the aft bulkhead, about the height where the bearings are
> located and about 1.5" wide and another at the bonding flange location
> between the aft bulkhead and the sternpost. Plus reinforcing the forward
> stick used to set the aft bottom fuselage spread when installing the
> bearing. This stiffened the entire aft section enough to prevent the
> bearings from twisting and binding when the top is clecoed in place.
>
> If I was doing this again, I would NOT follow the manual instructions
> again when installing the torque tube. I would instead set the entire
> fuselage with clecos (as recommended by the clamp mod instructions) and, at
> the last moment, if would bond the bearings even if it was a difficult
> task. Bud Yearly also provided advice about using stronger sticks to hold
> the bottom fuselage shape back there, which is what I tried to achieve with
> the ribs after the fact. I really concur with that advice since any
> miniscule deformation affected the bearings back there.
>
> Anyway, many thanks to all and looking forward to my friends stop calling
> my project "The Canoe Build" :)
>
> Best Regards,
> Chris
>
>
> Read this topic online here:
>
> http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=483494#483494
>
>


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