Chapter 16 Control System
This chapter deals with the
construction of the control systems of the airplane. Push rods and torque tubes are used to
control the elevators on the canard and the ailerons on the main wing. Cables are used to actuate the rudders on the
winglets.
I stole the diagram below from
fellow builder Rick Maddy’s sight, simply because it
is the most accurate depiction of what we are doing in the chapter. I printed it out and kept it handy for
reference while assembling the individual pieces. The plans, by and large, only reference each
part by its number, this becomes confusing (at least for my little brain
anyway) and I found it much easier to conceptualize each part by seeing the
picture.
The left side of the picture is
the front of the plane with #201 connecting to the canard elevators and the
right side of the picture is the firewall with #126 going out to the aileron belcranks in the wing root.
This chapter was rather straight
forward. Cut the tube to length, rivet some threaded inserts (CS50’s) into each
end of the tube for the rod ends to be screwed into, and go to the next piece. About the only fiberglass work that is done is
attaching the wooden bearing blocks (CS109 and CS118) to the sides of the
fuselage to hold the torque tubes in place, and fabrication of electrical
conduits for the wire runs later on.
The picture on the left shows the
control sticks, the top one is assembled and the bottom one shows the
pieces. The picture on the right shows
it assembled into the fuselage. You can
see the wooden bearing block just ahead of the control stick.
This picture shows the
continuation of the torque tube rearward.
This is a shot of the right side control in the rear seat area. The small orange piece forward of the wooden
bearing block is a universal joint that allows the torque tube to miss the curved
side of the fuselage.
The picture on the left is looking
further aft, this is where the torque tube goes through the landing gear
bulkheads and finally out the firewall. The right picture shows the tube that
connects the ride side and left side stick inputs. The aileron tubes will be bolted to the
outboard silver brackets in the right picture once the wings are in place.
Finally, the picture on the left
illustrates the rod going forward from the stick that controls the elevators on
the canard. The picture on the right show a “quick disconnect” that is fabricated
in the rod for quick removal of the canard for any servicing that may be needed
later on.
Next, electrical conduits are
constructed by the usual method of shaping scrap foam, applying a release agent
(duct tape) and glassing over them as seen in the left photo. The right photo shows a portion of the conduit
installed in the fuselage; it extends to the rear bulkheads.
The rest of the chapter deals with
running the cable for the rudders but I will put that off until I mount the
nose/rudder pedals in Ch. 13. You might recall, I am
putting that off as long as possible because my garage is a tandem setup and I
don’t have the width to do it.
This last picture shows the nyloflow tubing installed on top of the conduit that the
rudder cable runs through.
Total time so far……33.5 hours