RV-4 build log: left elevator

Showing posts with label left elevator. Show all posts

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Primed left elevator skin

Primed left elevator skin and trim. The boat is on the water with new antifoul, two new pumps and a fully working engine, so it is time to start building again.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Left elevator

Placed and drilled the brackets in place for the hinge rods on the left elevator. Fluted the tip ribs.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Trimmed the stiffeners

Finished the stiffeners for the left elevator.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Marked up the left elevator

Measured and marked up the left elevator including the trim tab.

Why?

For some reason people very seldom ask why I want to build an airplane, but they very often ask where. When I tell them, they immediately ask how I am going to get it out of there when it's finished...

Anyway, the real question to answer is probably why an RV-4 instead of some other plane. You just don't wake up one morning and say, "aha, it has to be an RV-4". Well, that was exactly what happened to me. I have always wanted to build real airplanes. I have looked at lots of kits, tried several finished ones, made large excel sheets, on and off for several years. Then I woke up one Saturday morning, everything was crystal clear, and the order for an RV-4 was sent to Van's before 10 AM the same day.

In hindsight, things like value, performance and so on can be brought up, and the RV-4 will come out among the best. But the truth is that some things in life has very little to do with logics and excel sheets.