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DC YXer

Member
Weird question, I know, but here's the deal: I'm about 95% ready to go buy an RV-7 emp kit and get started, but for the time being my building space is limited to a very small shop in the basement. (It's a rental house - we hope to buy either this summer or next, and yes, the new house will most definitely have space for a proper airplane factory.)

The available space I've got now in which to do the actual work is about 12'x6', which I figure is plenty big enough to build the tail feathers, but I'm concerned about getting the finished product(s) out the door and up the basement stairs once it comes time to move out. It's hard to explain in writing, but getting out the door of the room in question and up the stairs from the basement requires making a 180 turn pretty much standing in place. There's a railing on the steps I could probably take down but on the basis of spending about 5 minutes with a tape measure, I'm not totally sure I could get anything around the bend in those stairs that is longer than maybe 8-9 feet or so.

So, my questions: what are the dimensions of the tail feathers, specifically the spar in the horizontal stab? I figure I could get all the other parts out no problem (i.e., finish constructing the VS, rudder, & elevators themselves but just leave them disconnected from each other), but from an eyeball's glance at the proportions of the HS, I'm worried that the end to end length of the finished product might be too big to get out of the house.

Alternatives: Could I do all the dimpling, drilling, priming and such up to final assembly and just leave one side of the spar disconnected? Any other thoughts/suggestions/etc.?
 
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It'll Fit

You can fit the tail out a regular sized door with no problems. The HS and VS won't be attached to each other until they're attached to the fuse.
 
OneTwoSierra said:
You can fit the tail out a regular sized door with no problems. The HS and VS won't be attached to each other until they're attached to the fuse.
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Gotcha. But maybe I'm not explaining my problem right (which is hard w/o pictures - maybe I'll try to post some tonite), here's the guts of it:

"It's hard to explain in writing, but getting out the door of the room in question and up the stairs from the basement requires making a 180 turn pretty much standing in place."

It's not the getting through a standard size door that worries me, it's having to turn in place (i.e., with the HS nearly vertical under a 8-9 foot ceiling) that I'm not sure I can pull off. I certainly appreciate the feedback (especially so fast!!), but I really need to know the actual specs to know if I can make this work. Thanks!
 
The Horiz Stab is the biggest piece of the tail. If you stand it on end, it is about 9' including the tips. It is about 2' wide and just 3 or 4 inches thick. So, if you have tall enough ceilings, you should be able to negotiate the turns. Tilting will save you some, but if you have less than 8' ceilings in the stairwell, you could have a problem.
All the other pieces would easily fit.
 
Make a foam mock-up

Go to Home Depot and get a sheet of blue (or pink) foam and make up a mock-up of your HS and see if it will go.

John R
 
bonanza36 said:
Go to Home Depot and get a sheet of blue (or pink) foam and make up a mock-up of your HS and see if it will go.

John R
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Great idea! Thanks! But, ... :confused:

I've still got the same problem, don't I? How big should I make the mock-up? An earlier poster suggested roughly 9'x2' - and I suppose I'll use that as a guesstimate but I'd love to get the actual dimensions, especially the length of the spar would be great.
 
If you're really concerned, you could order the emp, finish the HS up until the point that you're ready to rivet, and then move onto finishing off the VS, rudder and elevators.

Assuming you got EVERYTHING else done that is possible to do without a HS, that would leave the following tasks for you new house (all of which together is maybe a couple of weeks of work and not worth worrying about in terms of planning):

1) HS rivetting (by the time you're done with the rest of the tail, this task will take you a full weekend, and maybe 3 or 4 weeknights. Very simple).

2) Trimming the rear spar and skin to fit the elevators (seriously, this shouldn't take more than an evening and that's being generous)

3) Drilling the elevator horns (another full evening, and once again that's probably generous)

4) HS tips (depends how comfortable you are with fiberglass. Because of my backround, I'm pretty comfortable working with glass. If not, this may take you a week of fiddling to get it just right)

I see no reason you can't completely fit, drill, dimple and prime the HS pieces without driving a single rivet. Also, once the kit arrives you may find that you can get it out of the basement afterall.

The bigger question is why you would want to start something now when you're possibly over a year away from being able to continue it? A lot can change between now and then...heck, you may even decide the -8 is a better fit for your mission than the -7, or Van's may decide to incorporate some builder input and refine their kit even further (elevator counterbalance rib fit comes to mind).

I'm not trying to sway your decision either way but merely wanted to offer a slightly different point of view.

Good luck.
 
sf3543 said:
The HS for my RV8 is 107" tip to tip. (Incl fiberglass) and 23 1/2" at the widest part.
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Precisely what I needed - thanks!

jcoloccia said:
The bigger question is why you would want to start something now when you're possibly over a year away from being able to continue it? A lot can change between now and then...heck, you may even decide the -8 is a better fit for your mission than the -7, or Van's may decide to incorporate some builder input and refine their kit even further (elevator counterbalance rib fit comes to mind).
Click to expand...

This is a very good point - and reflects perfectly the position I've been stuck in for years. What to do when I've got several of my ducks lined up (money & time primarily) but not others, namely build space? My concern is that there will always be reasons to wait, and that continually postponing getting started just keeps postponing getting finished. I definitely take your point, and it's a good one, but I'm feeling more and more like I've been letting the perfect be the enemy of the good for too long. In my heart of hearts, it's just time to get this party started - even if it means temporarily making do with less than ideal working arrangements.
 
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