Underside covering

Ironically, one of the most time consuming jobs wasn’t as a result of the incident back on 21 Jun 2024 .. the longest day !

Adding the trim tab seemed to take an inordinate amount of effort, especially as a ‘post build’ add on.

I remember asking the factory all those years ago, ‘where is the piano hinge for the trim tab’ .. we aren’t recommending it was the reply as it’s not hugely effective.

It turns out my weight (a pretty constant 75kg) means I could fly all day hands off and fuel level seems to make little difference.

Will, my son, who was slightly heavier than me found he was constantly having to hold forward ot back stick to maintain straight and level.

I offered to retro fit the tab which meant cutting into that lovely elevator curve .. mine being slightly larger as there are no tell tale pilot holes onnthe trailing edge, so just made it look ‘nice’ !

Maybe it’s that extra surface area that helps her stability ?

Anyway, to fit the steel cable to operate the tab and it’s outer demanded i cut access through the underside to ensure the outer cable was regularly secured and couldn’t bend… a classic radio control modelling issue with unsecured bowden cable – where you can lose anything from 50% to total movement if not secured

Now, cutting material off from a 5 year old aircraft that has been upside down and had lots of smoke oil and fuel over the years makes for an interesting challenge to cleanup and recover.

Cutting out one of the old belly pan ply landing plates and replacing it gave me a much cleaner base from which to work.

Adding panels back in to the underside will facilitate any partial re opening in future..vs one long nose to tail piece of Oratex (which the original covering was)

Final pieces going in today and doublers strips over the overlaps just for good meaurse

It’s a complex shape underneath with curves this way and that and undercarriage in the way .

Pre shrinkage – the aim being to get it as tight as you can before applying heat gun and iron …shrink rate is around 20% so impressive curved smooth finish