HS attach to fuselage

Slowly working my way through the plane....

The plans show attaching the HS to the fuselage with four AN bolts through the HS-614 onto the fuselage deck.. Two on each side.



When I went to attach the HS to the fuselage I noticed that my grandfather used the following bolt locations HS-614.



1/8" shims


Do you think this is ok?

nippaero said:

Do you think this is ok?

Click to expand...

IMHO, absolutely not. The HS needs to be tied into the fuselage longerons. In any case, this is the type of question that only Van's could answer for sure. That said, all is not lost. It looks like you could drill off the existing attach bracket and fabricate a new one that could then be drilled into the longeron as shown in the drawings.

Finally, it also appears that the HS is not perfectly centered over the fuselage. That might be worth correcting at the same time.

Good luck.

Hi Steve, I am planning on contacting Vans tomorrow. I think it is still tied to the fuselage former underneath via the angle. I could probably put in one more AN3 bolt through the longeron on the ends. I would need to check hole clearances. Appreciate the input, it confirms what I was thinking too.

I spoke to Vans this morning and they confirmed that the HS-614 should in fact extend to the outside edge of the longerons. They said this was a fairly common mistake with early RV-6 builders. Some people have replaced the HS-614 in the HS but that is a job to do. I sent them some pictures and they are going to look at them and research what my options are.

nippaero said:

I could probably put in one more AN3 bolt through the longeron on the ends. I would need to check hole clearances. Appreciate the input, it confirms what I was thinking too.

Click to expand...

You will not have sufficient edge clearance on the "port" side of the angle.

I can't see your pictures on my work computer, so I am guessing a bit here. Sounds like you have the same problem I ran into. My fuselage is a little too wide at that bulkhead, preventing proper edge distance for the bolt that attach the HS forward spar to the Fuselage deck. I spoke to Vans at the time and this was their solution:

Problem:


Van's said to make a triangular plate out of 0.125 2024 and pick up "3 or 4" rivets one the longeron:




I hope you haven't already drilled the vertical bars for attachement of the rear HS spar to the fuselage, those holes have to be shifted up as well since due to the added thickness of the gusset.

I would like to see what Vans recommends these days. The RV-6 knowledge base there is slowly fading, so they may have different input these days.

Colin,
Thanks for posting those pictures. They helped a lot. I can't speak for Vans but they seemed to indicate that your solution was ok when I spoke to them about it. I will probably move forward with what you did as well since re-doing the HS-614 would be a major pain.

I could probably get one bolt through the longeron on the right side as shown below. The problem is the left side of HS-614 was trimmed too far to be able to reach the edge of the fuselage.

Finally, it also appears that the HS is not perfectly centered over the fuselage. That might be worth correcting at the same time.

Click to expand...

It does look that way in the picture but is is actually centered ok.

I hope you haven't already drilled the vertical bars for attachement of the rear HS spar to the fuselage, those holes have to be shifted up as well since due to the added thickness of the gusset.

Click to expand...

Yes, they are already drilled but I think I will be ok because he already had 1/8" shims under the front spar of the HS. I will have to wait until the final incidence\level adjustment to be sure though.

Have you looked at SB 14-01-31 ?
I complied through inspection thus I have not done this SB. However, it might allow you access to replace the angle and you could kill two birds and have the SB done as a precaution while you are at it.
I could be all wet, so perhaps someone who has done the SB can chime in.

http://vansaircraft.com/pdf/sb014-01-31.pdf

Yes, I saw that SB but haven't had a chance to go through it yet. Thanks!