Saturday, September 5, 2020

Empennage, Fairings (Part 5)

During today’s work session, I started work on the two E-912 Elevator Tip Fairings.  The aft section of the Fairing flanges had to be trimmed to clear the trailing Edge (just like on the Rudder).  Once that was completed, there was surprisingly little trimming required on the Fairing to achieve a very, very good fit.  In the two pictures below, the Fairings have been fit to the right Elevator and match-drilled #40 (ensuring the trailing edge of the Fairing was aligned with the trailing edge of the Elevator).



The next two pictures are same Fairings on the right Elevator with the completed next step.....final-drilling the holes to #30.



The next two pictures show the left Elevator with all the completed steps up to having the holes final-drilled to #30.



I will still need to remove both Fairings in order to dimple the Skins and countersink the Fairings for the CS4-4 rivets.  However, I will complete those steps during the next work session.



In the meantime, I started work on the VS-909 Vertical Stabilizer Tip Fairing.  I lightly sanded the very front of the Fairing to make a better fit against the Vertical Stabilizer Skin.  Once the fit was acceptable, the eight holes (four on each side) were drilled.....first match-drilled to #40 and then final-drilled to #30.  Here are both sides of the Vertical Stabilizer Tip Fairing......the left side.....

.....and the right side.

There is still some trimming work remaining on these Fairings, but I wanted to fit the Fairing to the Vertical Stabilizer before I trimmed and removed any additional material from the Fairing.  For example, if you look just to the right of the cleco on the aft side of the Fairing....there is a little bit of Fairing sticking out slightly past the Verttical Stabilizer Skin. This part of the Fairing will need to be removed at a 90 degree angle to the Vertical.  Additionally, the aft side of the Fairing will need to have a patch installed to cover the back side of the Fairing.

So, more to follow....