The Fuselage
The tail boom has been inserted into the front retaining ring on the fuselage cage. The tube was stubborn and required several
forceful hits to insert, even with plenty of WD40 to help.
The boom has been carefully shimmed so that the attachment hole could be drilled into it while using the fuselage cage as a guide.
Finding the center of the boom is harder than you may think. This alignment is important, as it determines the angle of the tail
surfaces relative to the wing and engine thrust line. After the hole is drilled the boom has to be beaten back out to install a
reinforcing "H" section inside the tube.
Vertical alignment of the vertical stabilizer (rudder) is not a sophisticated technique. In fact, you are looking at it. You just
line up the tail with the vertical tubes in the fuselage cage. Though, in my case, the fuselage tubes were not quite welded in
straight (this is a build it your self airplane you know) and were not parallel to each other. I had to resort to a plumb bob
technique to achieve alignment. The tail may not be perfectly lined up with the fuse tubes, but it will be perpendicular to the
wings once installed. That's what matters most.
The side view of the fuselage. IT WAS A RELIEF to see that this assembly fits inside the garage with the door closed as planned.
There's about 9" to spare when the fuse is turned diagonally. This means I won't have to resort to the contingency plan, which was
to open the door off of the garage and let the tail stick into the laundry room!
The tail of my other "flying" machine can be seen in the lower left hand corner of the picture.
