empennage

My RV9A Project

Empennage Completed at
Alexander Technical Center
Week of Dec 1, 2003
Many thanks to Jake, George and Mike

We would first Cleco a tail component together, using the existing prepunched holes as a guide.

As we went along we would drill out the holes to the correct size to accept the rivets specified for that particular hole.

Here is the Horizontal Stabilizer Spars and Ribs being put together.

Here the Rudder is finished being assembled. All the holes have been drilled.

The next steps were to disassemble the pieces. Then the fun started. We deburred all the holes we drilled, scuffed the interior parts that will be primed, then either countersunk or dimpled the holes as required to accommodate flush rivets.

The pieces then went to the paint shop to be primed.

Some of the pieces we hand made from stock material. Here are two attach brackets I made. They will be used to attach the Horizontal Stabilizer to the Fuselage.

After the pieces were primed, we started to cleco everything back together. This time instead of drilling out the holes, we now started to rivet everything together.

Here is the rear spar for the Horizontal Stabilizer. Note the new color from the primer, and the rivets now holding the spar to the doubler behind it.

Here is the center section of the completed Horizontal Stabilizer.

This open section is where it will attach to the fuselage. You can see the attach brackets made earlier, now primed and riveted to the front spar.

Also note the flush rivets on the skins. The blue plastic you see on the outside of the skins is temporary, and help to keep the skins from being scratched while being worked on. The plastic had to be removed for the areas that were to be riveted.

The work below was completed in Columbia MD in August 2004 after a lot of work on the fuselage and wing, and prior to mounting the empennage on the fuselage.

To drill the hole for the pivot bearing for the left and right elevators, a brass tube was used to align the drill bit. This is the right elevator I am setting up to drill here. The same was done for the other left elevator horn. This allowed for the bolt to pass straight through the bearing with no binding due to misalignment.

Now for the hole that the pushrod will mate to. Again, they must be aligned so there is no twisting between the two elevators once the pushrod is attached.

The first hole was drilled at a specified location per the plans, the a drill guide was made by drilling a straight hole through a wooded block with a drill press. Both elevator counterweight arms are aligned with the horizontal stabilizer. Then the wood block is used as a guide to drill straight through to the other control horn.

Mounting the empennage to the fuselage

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