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tail attach change

tikicarver

Well Known Member
I bought an RV4 that has tail damage and basically needs a entire new empennage. So, I bought the construction manual from Van's.
After looking through the plans, I noticed that the way the vertical stab attaches to F410 is different in the plans than the way my plane was built. At first I thought the original builder did something custom, but then I looked at the set of full size drawings I got with the plane. It shows the way my plane currently is. So somewhere along the line the design was changed.
The plane was built in 1986. Anyone know when and why the plans were changed?

FYI. in my plane and the original plans, F410 goes from the bottom skin to the top skin as one piece. In the current plans there is F410A which is forward of F410. Well I don't have a F410A and it is not on the original plans.
 
I think that F410 was cut because it had a very small chance of fitting so it ended up getting cut anyway.

While you are back there check the F411 upright bars. There was one builder who notched the upright bars to go around the stringers instead of notching the stringers to go around the F411 upright bars. This building mistake resulted in a lost aircraft. One in a zillion chance it happened twice but since you're back there check it. It's with humble respect I bow my head to that builder and his sacrifice giving us something to check and not repeat increasing the safety of RV flight.
 
The F411 bars are ok. I looked at that area before I got the plans and thought it was funny that the longerons are notched.
I will have to rebuild F410,F411,F412. along with a new tail.
 
One less thing to worry about

I read this post and it reminded me that I had screwed up F-411 too. So I scoured my building photos until I found one that showed it. It's right :rolleyes:
 
Drawings

Does anyone have a scanned version of the old drawings of the one piece F410 bulkhead.
My restoration project is an older build (Pre 86), and I unfortunately do not have access to the original full size drawings.

Has there been any issues with the older design front attachment point?
Since Vans changed it into a split F-410.

BR
Espen
 
Do a good forum search on "horizontal tail". I remember there were some attached drawings on some old post.
I had some questions about my earlier version of the stab attach method (sr. #1904) Contacted Van's with some pics.
Short answer was that the design changed somewhat over the years but they were all OK if built to plans.

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