elevator skin cracks

I have a 4 that i purchased last April. It was in the San Diego Aerospace museum for 15 years and i bought it from a guy that had it for 1 year before he sold it to me. I have a V shaped crack emminating from one of the rivets on the leading edge of the elevator from one of the rivets. I noticed that there are 2 other repairs on teh rudder and it looks like there is a patch of some sort glued over what was probably skin cracks. Does any one know how to deal with this crack? It seems like I have read somewhere that skin cracks are a problem on the empenage skins.

I think drill stopping the cracks is your best fix, I've never heard of them on the leading edge tho. If the problem continues (more cracks, current cracks worsen) you might want to replace/rebuild the control surfaces all together. I'm pretty sure Van's has an option for thicker skins back there to deal with this problem. my $.02

rv-4 elevator skin crack

joe.


thanks for the reply. i am going to stop drill them and hopfully that will stop them.

happy new year.

Bill.

Heavier skins.

Bill - sorry to hear of your cracks. Hopefully, stop drilling will be the end of them. For background I put a bit on my blog about the heavier skins here which may be of background interest. There is a downside however you not only have heavier skins back there but then you have to carry more lead in the counterbalance. I wrote a bit about it yesterday if you go to the empennage (last day '06 entry) section of the blog.

Good luck with the stop drilling.

Build 'em right

bill price said:

Does any one know how to deal with this crack? It seems like I have read somewhere that skin cracks are a problem on the empenage skins.

Click to expand...

Building new elevators, and a rudder if need be, might be your best course. Yes, many builders opted for the .020" skins, but the weight is an issue. Bottom line: if you build .016" skin elevators/rudders properly they will stand up just fine. I researched this heavily when deciding what to do on the emp of my RV-3B, here is a summary what I learned and what I did.

skin cracks

If you choose to replace, I have a tail kit I am parting out. The control services are all untouched. If you interested, let me know. I'm only asking $350 for the whole tail kit minus the HS framework. I would sell only the control surfaces if you are interested.
Raymond Nallie
409-363-2769