Balancing the Elevator

The elevator and ailerons are generally required to be balanced to improve stick feel, longitudinal stability and reduce the potential for control surface flutter while in flight.  The Bearhawk is no different.  The method I chose to use to balance my elevator differs slightly from the Bearhawk plans.  The plans show clamping plywood to the leading edges of the elevator then pouring molten lead into a form, as shown here...

Learning Fabric Covering using Stewart Systems

Over the past week I installed the cabin floors, rudder pedals/brake master cylinders and the control stick assembly.  I had a slight problem with the control stick assembly binding after attaching it to the floor tabs.  After several on-off installations, I removed a slight amount of material around the torque tube, lubed it up real good, and now it moves free and correct without any binding.  Very smooth!

I could and will do more on the fuselage soon, but what really has my interest is the fabric covering process and I am challenged to learn as much as I can about how to do it and what is the best system to use.  This will be my first time covering an airplane so I have been excited to "figure it out"!

How I built the Rotisserie

Several have asked how I built the rotisserie.  Here's a video:

The Rotisserie WORKS!

The kit arrived today!  Mike Nellis was the delivery driver and did a great job unpacking and helping me unload the trailer.  It's amazing how well packaged the kit is.  Almost impossible to get damaged while being shipped.

We put the fuselage in the garage and the wings went down the street to a storage unit.  When Mike left, I went back to the garage and mounted the fuselage on the rotisserie and it worked great!  Watch the video. 

Preparing for the delivery of the Bearhawk kit

Friday June 1, 2018

Today is the big day!  Delivery of the Bearhawk 4 Place kit will happen this afternoon.  Last evening I finished setting up the long skinny two car garage for its new occupant.  I also completed the fabrication of the fuselage rotisserie and feel pretty good that I built it right.  It will need some fine tuning and I will get exact measurements when the frame arrives to mount the tail section and firewall, but that shouldn’t take very long.  So once the fuselage is mounted to the rotisserie, the building begins!