Control Sticks!

Build Crew:

Hours:

James
2.5

Since there is a bit of a setback with wrapping up the elevator (waiting on the the control horn), I decided to move forward with the control system. It’s a bit of a different task, but fun none-the-less. You can see from the picture above, there are lots of different parts to work with! One of the fun parts of this section of build is that each task is completely different. The control system build out is assembling a series of bespoke sub-assemblies, and then connecting them all together to complete a control system. It consists of four major tasks:

  1. Elevator bellcrank assembly
  2. control rod assemblies
  3. control stick fitting
  4. final assembly

In this post we’ll review how far we got with some pictures and commentary.

First step was the elevator bellcrank. It is the mechanism that reverses the control forces on and aircraft. Pull back brings the elevator up, and push forward brings the elevator down. Since I will need to prime these parts before final assembly I was only able to get things shaped, deburred and fitted.

Next up was building out the control rods. The plans give you a cool hint on how to evenly distribute the holes around the rod tube. It’s funny that they don’t give you that hint in the build out of the wing. Would have been nice since I ended up having some ugly distribution on the aileron control rods. Any who, I was able to get through both control rods fairly easily and with the help of the hint (see pictures below), they came out quite nice. Oddly enough, One of the rods they said to prime after assembly, the other, before. In both cases I need to somehow swirl primer around the inside of the control rods. Not exactly sure how that will turn out.

Now the fun part! Getting the control sticks mounted. It starts with shaping the bearings to fit the control column, then test fitting the whole thing. One of the challenges is shaping the bearing just right… there is a taper in the control column that is very subtle, but with patiences and lots of test fits I got both sides looking good. Another important consideration is the bolts that connect the elevator rod… they are required to be AN3-10A bolts, but need to be shaved down to avoid any binding against the control column. Since these bolts are going to be very custom, I ended up marking them and the holes to ensure they will always correctly be used. having the incorrect bolt there could be dangerous!

And with that… we’ve got a control stick! Next up, I will repair the elevator, get final fitting done, and see if I can move the elevator around with the control stick.. woo hoo!! Until then I leave you with a cool video of the control stick movement…. and Happy Building!

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