March 2001

I was really pondering the spar cap position. It didn't really seem right so I posted a message on the Europa email thread.  Miles McCallum  replied and pointed out that the fin had scribe lines on the top.  I took another look and sure enough it had a couple of short marks and the forward and aft on both sides of the fin.

I cut the fin down some more and fitted up the spar cap. With it sitting on the fin a bit deeper meant that the stern post had to swing in a bit more, so I had to re drill the cleco holes.  I had a try at putting the rudder in position and it was apparent that the top hinge was going to land right in the middle of the joggle for the spar cap.

Marty came by and helped figure out where the ribs inside the fin had to go.  We pondered the rudder hinge issue and really decided that it "was where it was" so to speak.

We marked out where the ribs were to go and drilled holes both in the sternpost and the fin.  We then cleoc'ed up the hole thing.  I did a recheck and the fin was still vertical.  If you look carefully at the photo you can see a vertical datum line that I used for this.

The last job for the day was to drill a hole bunch of lightening holes in each rib to allow the antenna cable and strobe cable to pass through.

I have decided to use a Bob Archer antenna in my fin.  I purchased that SA006, which is a real tight fit.  The issue is more about trying to make sure the elements don't end up under a rib, and this proved pretty tricky.  Apparently he sells another unit, SA006a which allows the end elements to swing around a bit.  I wired up a short length of coaxial cable and crimped a connector onto it.  I didn't really want to be bothered  with a really long piece of cable so I intend to just plug the long run of cable onto the connector.  Once I had it terminated (and triple checked) I spot glued it in place with 5 minute epoxy.

I had to sand back the foam on the port side to get a flat surface for the stern post to sit on.  This ended up being an area of exposed foam, so I put a single layer of bid on it and covered it was peel ply.  while I had the sticky stuff out I put a couple of bid straps on the antenna to hold it in place.

I got busy with the drill and sanding drum and scuff sanded all of the ribs and the corresponding spots on the inside of the fin.  Once I had done that Jenny came and gave me a hand bonding them in with Redux.  Things went fairly well,  I used cleo's with a spot of grease on them to hold them in place.

Thursday 8.

I took a good look at every thing and it seem to go pretty well.  I acid test was taking out the cleco's, and sure enough they came out without too much grief.  I cleaned off all of the grease with alcohol and put in a coat of Superfil in each of the holes.

With the top sitting on it was quite apparent that working inside this area with only one access hole would be extremely difficult, so I decided to put in another one in the bottom half of the fuselage under the stabilizer.  I cleaned of the fuselage and put on 4 layers of bid to make a cover out of.

I called Europa to ask about the joggle in the way of my hinge.  They seemed pretty unconcerned and suggested that I just grind it off and put in some bid one the top is bonded on.  I hung the rudder and for a first look a lot of material is going to need to come off the stern post and rudder top to get the 30 degree swing.

I am using Graham Singletons tail wheel mod, and this used a pushrod in the fin to swing  it.  This is how the Europa classic works, so after much reading and re reading of the pages from the classic manual I cut the leading edge of the rudder to fit in an internal attachment point.

Today was a really nice sunny day so I went flying for most of the day.  I did take a look at the attachment bracket and decided that it was never going to work the way I had it set up.

No building.

I poked around with the LE push rod bracket for the rudder some more trying to figure out how on earth it worked until it dawned on me that I was trying to fit it in the rudder upside down.  I remounted it and made a push rod up to fit to the bell crank in the tail.  I am sure that I will have to do a lot more work fitting the LE push rod bracket into the rudder, but now at least I understand how it might actually work.

I laid up reinforcing ring for inspection port,  using 5 bits, 9" in diameter, reducing down to 8.25".  Once I had it all in place I put a sheet of peel ply on and let it set.

Friday 16

No building.

I decided to glue in the stern post today.  Although the manual suggests that you do this when you bond the top on, I think it will be easier if I do it ahead of time.

I pulled the peel ply of the inspection port and it looks really good so I cut the center out and fitted up the cover plate.  By the time I had put in the rivets and put a coat of super fill in the cover it was time to call it quits for the day.

This morning was a sunny day so it was too good to miss.  I dragged out the Comanche and flew it over to the Mississippi river on the boarder of Wisconsin and Iowa.  There is a small town called Prairie du Chen and we stopped for lunch.

I got back in time to do a little bit of Europa work.  The stern post looked good with out too much Redux, so apart from slicing off the odd dag or too with a chisel I left it alone.  I sanded back the inspection port and got it pretty close to being flush with the fuselage. 

The last job for the day was to fit up the cable shackles for the rudder and put on the push rod.  It didn't swing quite as free as it should so that looked like a job for another evening.

I crimped up the cables that went from the bell crank to drive the tail wheel.  I must admit, despite this tail wheel mod being a lot of messing about it looks really tidy compared to the standard way Europa does it.  I made a couple of tubes out of nylon for the cables and Reduxed them into the stern post.

Traveling to Japan & India on business.