LettersFromFlyoverCountry
Well Known Member
"You've got your friends and you've got your aviation friends," as former RVator Bernie Ockuly is fond of saying. No fewer than 5 RVators from around the Twin Cities responded to my "mayday" call this week as efforts failed to get the hinge bolt to engage with the nutplate on the right bearing hinge bracket of the fuselage on the RV-12iS. Yesterday I pulled it back, took off the counterbalance arm and tried to recreate the problem by trying to finger-tighten the bolt and I could feel it continually disengage from the threads. So I used a nutdriver with a socket to apply enough pressure to get the bolt to engage and then repeated it several times to be sure everything had been cleaned out and then tried to finger tighten again and it engaged fine. Oddly enough, I'd done this days ago too and while the bolt engaged numerous times, I struck out when trying to get it fastened when mounting the stabilator.
Was that the problem? Or was that just fixing a problem that had been introduced when trying to fix the problem. There was no way to know without help. I'm convinced it's simply not possible to do this yourself, even though I'm aware of the stories hereabouts that it is. Let's just say, "not for me."
So the guys came over and supported the stabilator and it took a fair amount of effort to get things lined up. I used a screwdriver to slightly open the hinge brackets to allow them to slip over the bearing, then repeated on the other side as they supported things. Lining up still took a little bit of adjusting -- raising the aft end slightly, bringing the front end down etc, and wiggling things slightly until I could pin things with the "drift pins" I'd made for attaching the wings on the RV-7A project almost 20 years ago; glad I saved them.
Once that was done I was able to finger tighten and then tighten the bolts somewhat because THEY ENGAGED THE THREADS!!!!
I didn't torque them down yet because I have a question to research: Is the torque value of an AN4 bolt into a nutplate the same as the torque value of an elastic locknut going onto an AN4 bolt? My suspicion is it's not although I can't yet confirm this and my AC43.13-1B is at the hangar and I'm not.
Anyway, here's a shoutout to my aviation friends (Left to right)
Phil Martineau - Phil flies an RV12 out of St. Paul Downtown Airport and is currently building a Glastar. He's on the EAA Board of Directors and is the retired chairman of Pittsburgh Corning. He's a lot smarter than me. His EAA Builder's Log is good reading. He didn't arrive in time to see the "Miracle in Bob's Hangar" but he was giving me moral support and technical advice all week. He put his stabilator on by himself.
https://eaabuilderslog.org/?blproject&proj=7nwawiuuC
John Schmidt - Longtime member of my EAA Chapter in Lake Elmo although I think now he's moved down to AirLake Airport and is in Chapter 25. You know how there's always those 3 or 4 people in a chapter you can count on for Young Eagles days? That's John. He's a got a gorgeous Cub and an RV-6 project. John is also smarter than me.
Bill Swanson - I've only met Bill once, I think, back when I owned the 7A and we flew into Olivia with the Twin Cities RV Group for lunch. Man, I miss doing that. I never thought I'd go going on 8 years without flying an airplane. Anyway, I believe Bill fiies out of Anoka-Blaine Airport (on the other side of the Twin Cities) and I think he's working on an RV-6 project. He appears to be smarter than me.
Pete Howell - Probably the smartest RVator I know and it goes without saying he's smarter than me. Pete, even if it means driving over from Anoka-Blaine or the other side of Saint Paul, has never failed to show up on those rare occasions when I put out a "mayday". Pete is an RV9A-flying legend and just about the nicest guy you'd ever want to know. I also don't believe there's ever been a problem he hasn't been able to solve.
Jeff Schwalen - flies an RV-10 out of South St. Paul's Fleming Field (KSGS). His hangar is on the other side of the field from me and we hadn't met. So I got a new friend out of my three days of frustration with the horizontal stabilator. I can just tell by looking at him he's smarter than me.
Wonderful gentlemen one and all! I can't thank them enough.
It's good to get back to work on the plane project, which I had to put on hold when I had to move to Boston late last summer to take care of my sister after her stem cell transplant. By the time I got back to Minnesota in November, the cold had already set in and I had left the drilled-but-not-attached canopy sitting on the frame and I don't want to touch it until the weather warms up. Fortunately, we've had temps in the '50s the last few days so I can at least do some work on the tail end of the project and, hopefully, there are no problems ahead that require the use of the Bat Signal.
