Chapter 16 Control System

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