Wednesday, September 20, 2006

working on the airplane rudder

I haven't posted an airplane update in a while, largely because I haven't had time to work on it in a while. Just before the move, the rudder, which I'd hung on the wall to get it out of the way, made a leap for freedom. It crunched the trailing edge pretty well.

I've been working backwards, in a way, drilling out the rivets to salvage the intact parts and replace the damaged ones. Unfortunately, with this rudder design, the intact parts aren't a whole lot. Here's a photo of the skeleton, which is most of what's salvageable.
Here, you can see the damaged part. The damage itself is to the right: that part that's bent towards the camera shouldn't be. Both rudder skins and the wedge that holds them together got bent. There are several stiffeners attached to the skin (you can't see them in this view) that didn't actually get bent, but drilling them out and trying to reuse them would likely damage them, so I expect to simply get new ones when I order new skins.

Anyway, the next step with the rudder will be to order new pieces and begin rebuilding, which is a bit of a discouraging prospect. I'll probably start on the elevator instead and, when I make the inevitable goof and have to get a replacement part, have them ship rudder parts at the same time. Posted by Picasa

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