Van's Air Force
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Tail sheetmetal Thickness
- Thread starter rfidler
- Start date
They have never been changed.
fixnflyguy
Well Known Member
Like RVBuilder said, they are still .016". You can get .020" for additional charge (I may be building a new rudder from ramp damage) and got quotes. The .016" doesn't always crack, but requires a bit more attention when building. An RV-4 needs to keep the tail very light, so keep that in mind while building.
smokyray
Well Known Member
Crack me up...
Amen.
Van's will sell you either thickness but since they sell few 4's, everything is made to order and .016 is standard. I have inspected many RV4's over the years and historically the cracks I've found are mostly on the 180 CS air-frames. .020 skins help but can still develop cracks with enough vibration
One of the improvements in the -8 was .020 skins on the E&R but they are heavier. It's also one of the changes to the RV4 kit when you build an HR2.
V/R
Smokey
PS:I built my RV4 tail per plans in 94' with .016 Elevator and rudder skins. There has only been one small hairline crack in the lower rudder in 2000 hours/20+yrs (0-320/Catto).
Amen.
Van's will sell you either thickness but since they sell few 4's, everything is made to order and .016 is standard. I have inspected many RV4's over the years and historically the cracks I've found are mostly on the 180 CS air-frames. .020 skins help but can still develop cracks with enough vibration
One of the improvements in the -8 was .020 skins on the E&R but they are heavier. It's also one of the changes to the RV4 kit when you build an HR2.
V/R
Smokey
PS:I built my RV4 tail per plans in 94' with .016 Elevator and rudder skins. There has only been one small hairline crack in the lower rudder in 2000 hours/20+yrs (0-320/Catto).
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Per Sq ft weight of 2024-T3 sheet is easy to find searching on-line
.016 is .23 lbs / Sq ft
.020 is .29 lbs / Sq ft
If we assume each elevator to be ~ 10 sq ft (may be a bit high but I think it is not too far off), .016 skins for two elevators weighs about 4.6 lbs.
.020 skins for two elevators would weight about 5.8 lbs.
The resultant delta is 1.2 pounds. Add to that the rudder skin weight difference (lets call it .5 lbs) and you have a total Delta of 1.7 lbs.
That might not seem like much until you actually do some balance calculations...
To counter the added weight on the tail would require about 5 pounds be added at the propeller just to get back to the where the C.G. would have been before adding the heavier gage skins. Not to mention that the airplane is now almost 7 pounds heavier.
