KenChoo

Hi all,

Okay, I made a very stupid mistake installing the horizontal stab on my Zen 90. In my obsession with making sure the alignment of stab tips to wing tips and stab tips to fuse center line (at the firewall) was equal, as well as ensuring the stab was 100% level with the wing, I forgot to ensure that both stab halves were equidistant from the fuse! I have my left stab half about 4mm further out than the right half (and therefore, the stab is tilted back on the left/longer half since all other measurements like stab tip to wing tip do match up).

My question now is, should I try to remove the stab and redo it right this time (I'm a horrible builder, I mess up ARFs!) or will this amount of error (4mm) not be enough to affect the flight performance so that it would be noticeable? I'm guessing that with more stab out on the left side it would produce more lift on the left, and would adversely impact performance/trimming whenever I moved out of level flight. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Ken

P.S. Any tips on how to remove the stab to refit it properly would be appreciated! Right now the only thing I can think of is to draw a line about 1/8th inc. above the stab at the fuse joint, and use my knife to cut out the stab and wood at the line. I would remove that 1/8th in wood and install a new saddle inside, and reattach with expoxy and filler.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Fly it. If you can tell that something is wrong, fix it. If not, don't tell anybody about it (Shhh, It'll be our little secret)

rplumbo

My Feedback: (3)

Ken,
I did the same thing on a plane i was building about a year ago. Actually my fuselage was sort of warped but the exact same outcome was achieved. My response is as long as it's straight from tip to firewall like you said it was, it should be fine. Have you ever seen that WWII Luftwaffe plane that looks like it's been shot to hell? The name escapes me, but it has a few feet of stab on one side of the fuselage and about 4 times that much on the other. It was actually a well regarded recon plane too! Like MinnFlyer said, fly it, and if there's a problem, then fix it. I'm going to take it a step further and give you great odds that this won't be an issue.
Enjoy!

Reid

Flyboy Dave

My Feedback: (21)

If it's really buggin' 'ya....whack 4mm off the long end.

cwat212

it could be an inch off and still fly fine.

as long as it doesn't drive you crazy then it should be no problem.

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

Noone will see it. Fly it, or is it is really buggin you and you used epoxy, heat it with your heat gun and it should come loose. I would take that much off the other side though and not worry about it.