- Vertical stabilizer is now complete drilled and fitted to the fuselage and horizontal stabilizer! I still need to disassemble, deburr, clean and prime everything that needs it. After that the vertical stab connector plate will get riveted onto the vertical stab forward spar.
- I started this process by making and adding a .063 shim to the horizontal stabilizer. This was recommended by various forum members and will especially apply to my plane because I will have a more aft cg with the ballistic parachute.
- I then doubled checked the fit and alignment of the vertical stabilizer and drilled the connector plate to the vertical stab forward spar using the angle drill.
- After deburring and cleaning up the connector plate I started on locating the holes for the AN4 bolts that secure the vertical stab rear spar to the fuselage and tailwheel mount.
- Locating these holes took a long time - probably over and hour. This is essentially blind drilling with fairly close tolerances. It involved a lot of tricky measuring of the inside of the fuselage and tailwheel mount then transferring these measurements to the outside drill point. This was a case of measure several times then check measurements many more times, repeat, etc.
- I did follow another RV builders advice of moving the upper bolt holes 1/8" inboard. That worked out great and gave me a little more comfort when drilling the holes.
- The actual drilling and reaming of the holes went well but took a while because of the multiple layers of steel and aluminum.
Inside view of the vertical stab spar to tailwheel mount bolts:
Bolts temporarily in place ... good edge distance everywhere:
I double checked after drilling the pilot holes but did not need any adjustments:
#30 pilot holes done:
My custom F-781 connector plate drilled to the vertical stab:
Drilling in process:
