[AirbusPilot]

Hi Folks,

I am finishing my RV-8 and checking every parts for the maiden yesterday a good friend who has experience building experimental planes and flying tail dragger told me that he think the fork bolt is to close to bottom rudder so he thinks that probably this is going to hit the bottom rudder and destroy the fiberglass parts.

I measured the distance between bottom rudder and the bolt and I have two and a half inches with the plane unload.

So what come from experience, is there any of you that have hit the bottom rudder with the bolt.

Waiting for reply

 

[jsharkey]

Looks OK

You should also have about 3/4" to 1" clearance at the root end. That's where I had to adjust.

Jim Sharkey
RV6 - Phase 1

 

[cjensen]

I just did this today. I didn't measure my bolt clearance, but I made sure to have at least an inch, more like an inch and a quarter, clearance at the root...

 

[mgomez]

Root clearance is the problem for me

I trimmed the top of the fairing past Van's scribe lines, and removed about 1/2" from the bottom, but I don't get anywhere near 1" root clearance for my bottom fairing.

Any ideas what I did wrong?

 

[decathlon737]

Good

I have 1/2 inch clearance at the root and 2 1/2 inch at the bolt. 150 hrs and no problem. The rod has almost zero deflection at the root. YMMV

 

[N941WR]

I cut mine similar to what Chad did but it was full depth at the trailing edge of the rudder.

In 250 hours of flight off both grass and pavement I never so much as scratched the rudder bottom until...

When I had my prop strike the torque of hitting the trailer high up on the shank of the prop drove the tail down cracking the rudder bottom on that bolt.

When I replaced the rudder bottom I trimmed it the same way as the original. Only this time I used plate nuts to attach it, just in case it ever needs to be replaced again.