Todays work will finish off the vertical stabilizer for the RV-12. Next I build the rudder. What has amazed me with this experimental aircraft kit is how few parts there are compared to the RV-10. The engineering department at Vans Aircraft has done a great job designing this E-LSA.
Step 1: Cleco the VS-1201 Main Skin to the V-Stab Skeleton Assembly as shown in Figure 1. First cleco one side of the skin, then check that the narrow end of the VS-1202 Front Spar, VS-1205 Tip Tib, and VS-1206 Mid Rib will not deform the leading edge of the main skin. If any of the ribs deform the leading edge of the main skin, radius the marrow ends of the ribs (See Page 6-05, Step 1.) Next, check the main skin hole alignment with the ribs on the side not yet cleoed. If holes do not align, remove the skin and adjust the ribs by additional fluting of lessening existing flutes (Section 5N) until the rib holes align with the skin holes. When all of the holes align, celco the rest of the main skin.
The idea is to not have deformation of the skin as you see in the two pictures below. To correct this I ended up removing the skin a couple of times and reworking the radius on the end of the Front Spar and the Middle Rib.
This is what I was hoping for, below.
Step 2: Start nearest to the leading edge of the VS-1201 Main Skin, remove one cleco and rivet that hole before moving on to the next hole. Continue until all of the main skin holes are riveted to the corresponding holes in the V-Stab Skeleton Assembly per call-out in Figure 1.
Step 4: Screw the VS-1204 Fwd Skin to the nutplates at the front of the V-Stab Assembly using the hardware called out in figure 1. the bottom eight holes in the Fwd Skin are left open until the V-Stab Assembly is installed to the Tailcone Assembly.
Step 5: Bolt the Upper Hinge Assembly to the V-Stab Assembly using the hardware called out in Figure 1. NOTE: After I finish torque bolts down, I like to make them with a spot of Torque Seal (the orange stuff on the bolt head.) This way 6 months or a year from now when I come back to working on a part I know whether or not I have torque those bolts or not.
Step 6: tie the Lower Hinge Assembly to the V-Stab Assembly through the bolt holes that will be used to attach the Lower Hinge Assembly and tape a bag of the hinge hardware to the tie. The Lower hinge Assembly will be installed when the V-Stab Assembly is installed to the Taicone Assembly. NOTE: If you read a head you will see it need to be attached temporarily during construction of the rudder.
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