Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

I got the rudder fully rigged. It is nice to be able to sit in the seat and actually push on the brakes and operate the rudder. I think this is the first time that I’ve gotten a good idea what the pedals are really going to feel like. I used a zip tie on each rudder linkage at the pedals to determine link length. Worked great.
Stu and Deene were replacing all four cylinders on Stu’s RV8 with new ECI cylinder assemblies in Stu’s hangar a few feet away. I ducked over there for a little while to soak up some top end overhaul wisdom. I learn cool new things every day that I’m out there just by being there. That is the whole goal of this project for me. Many thanks to those that are willing and able to share knowledge.

It was another one of those long days at the hangar that didn’t quite produce the results that one would expect, but it all has to get done somehow. Tanya brought lunch and headed for home around 5pm. She spent most of her time picking up the tool mess that I had made the previous week. She only comes out on the weekend while I’m out there every day. I warned her that I had almost emptied all of the tool chests onto the work benches :).

After the rudder was all squared away, I took care of other little stuff. I got a connector shell on the autopilot roll servo wiring and secured the wires. I installed the seat rib cutouts, and gapped and installed a new spark plug for one that I had dropped.

I do now have a “short list” that I’m beginning to consult.

 

  

  

 

I finished up installing the elevator trim servo. I wired it with molex micro-fit 3.0 pins with no connector shell. I left a little service loop with the connectors on it coiled above the servo in the elevator. Everything all neatly heat shrinked together. Elevator removal should entail removing the servo, cutting off the outer shrink tube and the shrink tube on each of the five connectors. Then the wire will be pulled through a snap bushing in the elevator spar. The wire will then need to be fished back through upon reassembly.

Moving on to the rudder. I double checked the hinge rod end bearing alignment and secured the rod end jam nuts on the rudder spar with some loctite. I dressed the rudder wires through a snap bushing and through some expandable wire sleeve for protection. It was very easy to fish the wires up through the permanently secured rudder bottom. I installed the requisite connectors and then it was time for a light show!

Now, for the first time, I have all three nav lights and all three strobe lights all wired up. Lets see if we can keep the blue smoke from getting out :). I put fuses in those two circuits. At about this time, Jim showed up from his hangar after having a little bit of a frustrating evening with aileron assembly. He already had a beer in hand, so I had an audience just in case anything went terribly wrong with the first test of these two circuits. I threw the nav light switch and they all came on just they are supposed to. Cool. Now for the real exciting part, I flipped on the strobe switch and we had a full on light show in the hangar. All the strobes came up and fired in the correct pattern. Those things are bright. Amazing, all that circuitry and everything worked just right the first time.

So, now all the big parts are on the airframe. I still need to rig the rudder controls but it looks like a complete airplane.

 

  

  

  

  

 

Today I finished fitting and adjusting the hinge points of the elevators and rudder. This is the point where most people call the empennage complete. Given that it is almost a month until the wing kit is shipped, I won’t call this kit done. Instead, I’ll dive right into working on the fiberglass tips of all the surfaces.

 

  

  

 

This week I completed riveting the dreaded trailing edges of all of the control surfaces (right and left elevator and rudder). I probably worried about them too much, or maybe just right, as I think they came out great. They are all very straight.

After the proseal had cured, I unscrewed the angle aluminum from the edge of the bench and removed all of the clecos holding the trailing edge to the angle. Then I cleaned up some of the little bits of proseal in the rivet holes. I had some extra flat rivet sets for my squeezer that I was willing to sacrifice. I ground the face of one of these sets to the proper angle (84 degrees) and carefully squeezed the rivets about half of the way. I alternated the side that the shop head was on for each rivet (one up, the next down). After I had all of the rivets squeezed about half of the way, I went back and squeezed them all about another quarter of the way. Then I got out the back rivet plate and put the mushroom set in the rivet gun and drove (back riveted) all of the rivets the rest of the way. The shop head side looks very good and a very straight trailing edge was easily produced.

Yeah! After all the work, preparation, and hand wringing, the trailing edges are done without incident. Next, we’ll roll the rudder leading edge and fit elevator counterweights.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

I already had all of the rudder parts prepared, so it was just a matter of final riveting to complete the rudder except for the trailing and leading edges. Using a longeron and 4″ yoke, I was able to squeeze all of the rivets. I used the longeron yoke to squeeze the difficult ones inside the base reinforcement bracket. The only blind rivets that I used were for the last (aft) rivet in the ribs.

When fitting the skins, I had to do some trimming of the forward edge of the stiffeners in the middle where they came too close to the spar doubler plate. I’ll set the rudder aside for trailing edge completion when I have the elevators ready. This concludes all of the “pile of parts” that I had prepared and primed. So, on to the elevators…

 

  

rudder counterbalance weight installed

  

trimmed rudder stiffener

  

  

  

Rudder control horn

  

  

no (optional) blind rivets needed here

  

blind rivet in last hole