Vertical Tail Fin

Another kewl looking item once you get it installed lol.

We had a hell of a time making that bracket fit the tailboom.  We bent it cold in a vice by bulling it up and down and all around a little at a time until we screwed it up to a point of no return and had to order another one.   About a week went by and the new piece arrived and we went at it again and this time we got a perfect fit.

On Saturday we got the part where it's time to put the fin on.  If you watch the videos and read the books and prints they have contradicting meanings and your stumped because you can't call RotorWay on the weekend, unless you do what we did.

The video says to make a template from cardboard, mark it at 128 degrees, and lay it on top of the tail boom and line the fin 128 degrees to the top of the tail boom.

 Don't do it!

The print says to line the center seam of the fin up with the center of the tailboom (at the same angle).  If you lay a ruler on the seam in the print the line shoots out and passes above the horizontal fin about 4 inches.  Well this lead us to think the video was right, the blueprint drawing was right and that part about running the center seam parallel with the tail boom was wrong, after all why would some engineer specify you mount the fin at a spec of 128 degrees if it wasn't important, Right?

Well we drilled our holes in the fin and onward into the bracket and Wallah we are done.  The seam sure looks funny not being lined up, but it's got to be right, Right?

Well we called Tom Smith Monday and reported the error in the drawing and he said he knew about that and we should have went with the center seam because the the angle isn't that critical, it's purely for Esthetics, HUH!!

"What's esthetics?" I asked".

He said that means for looks.  Well Shucks!!!  It's ok to have it that way but it isn't right and not right isn't right.  Well when I thought of remaking that bracket again I got a lump in my throat and decided to go ahead and remake it.

I began taking it off and noticed the rear mounting hole, you know the one that goes into the tailboom where we made that backing plate, the one we worked our butts off on, laying it out so we'd get that hole to hit right in the center of the rivet pattern.  Rotating the fin forward would have meant that the new hole would be just under the pattern, well I couldn't handle that and the fact of having to cut holes into my tailboom, so our fin is where it is for good.  <pout>

The moral to the story is: 

If something doesn't add, STOP!!!  Go work on some thing else, or just take the day off but above all else, wait until you call someone who knows! 

As far as flying, it won't have any affect and most folks will never notice it's like that,  but it will always bug us because we wanted everything to be perfect on this thing or at the very least as close as we could come to it.