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Showplanes tailcone skin

U

unitink72

Well Known Member
I ran across this today when looking at their cowl, this must be a fairly new thing. I'm well past tailcone construction so not an option for me, and for the price it would be a hard sell. But sure does look nice!

Just out of curiosity, anybody have this?

Factory tailcone:
BbKZyvl.png


Showplanes:
wJno8oy.png
 
That's pretty interesting. I'm just about to start tailcone construction, so maybe this would be a nice replacement for the aluminum skin, but I'm not sure it's worth it.

I think the one benefit I can see is you can locate your antennas inside the tailcone instead of mounting antennas outside. However, I guess the question to builders that have finished avionics install is, how much benefit is this really?

I'm already planning on hiding archer antennas in the wingtips, and the GPS can go in the cabin if you have an overhead console. The tail fairing is a good place for ELT right now. You have to have mandatory separation between COMM antennas, transponder antennas and ADSB anyways, so it doesn't seem like you'd be able to fit more than two in this area.
 
I think the nicest looking part about the Showplanes kit is the radiused fairing at the bottom of the vertical stabilizer. And that's easy enough to modify from the standard part...
 
Kyle Boatright said:
I think the nicest looking part about the Showplanes kit is the radiused fairing at the bottom of the vertical stabilizer.
Click to expand...

Oh yea I didn't even notice that. I just like the smooth line coming off the rear canopy all the way back to the vertical stab.

The n-number on that plane is N104AL, from Jacksonville OR. I didn't recognize the name of the builder.
 
I love the cleaner, more streamlined look of this mod, but just for added time, cost, and complexity I decided not to do this to my current project. I inquired about this to Showplanes and here is the response I received:

Yes it is for sale, p/n is CTS-10 composite RV-10 tailcone skin. The reason you don’t see it on the web site is I have not had a chance to complete an installation manual. The 10 at Synergy had the installation completed here. Price for the complete kit as pictured is $2500.00 with a lead time of 6-8 weeks from order deposit. I hope to have the manual completed in a few months, please let me know if you have questions.
 
fastback

I just spoke with Bryan at showplanes. It is indeed available. I saw the aircraft at Oshkosh awhile back and it looks awesome!
 
Composite tailcone skin? Interesting.

Since that skin is an integral part of the tailcone stiffness, have they done a flutter clearance with it? There are some flutter modes of vibration that could be affected by that.

Not trying to bash Showplanes - I generally like their products and know them to be very helpful to the community.

Dave
 
flutter

If you are referring to the possibility of the skin of the upper tailcone reaching a divergent vibration mode, it is not just a fiberglass sheet...it has a honeycomb structure much like the cowl. It is likely more rigid than the aluminum skin (with stiffeners) that it is replacing.

...and it certainly has nicer lines!
 
rocketman1988 said:
...it is not just a fiberglass sheet...it has a honeycomb structure much like the cowl. It is likely more rigid than the aluminum skin (with stiffeners) that it is replacing...
Click to expand...

Well, maybe.

At issue here is not the panel stiffness (resistance to out of plane loads), but its shear stiffness, for which honeycomb or other sandwich core is pretty much immaterial. As such, the primary drivers of its contribution to fuselage torsional stiffness are the modulus of elasticity of the fiberglass laminates, and the thickness of the layup.

--Bob K.
 
Empennage fairing

I didn't build the plane but the builder did custom build the empennage fairing. I like the smoother lines. Not a great pic as I had to blow one up that kind of shows the lines.

t7ej49.jpg
[/IMG]

Gary
 
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