Gringo Flyer

My Feedback: (18)

I have a 90 sized kit built Fusion and I am about to make an international move. Moving space is going to be very tight but I'm hoping that I can get the Fusion down pretty small. I am planning on removing the elevator and horizontal stab in a way that it can be reinstalled later. Any ideas on how to remove it in a way that I can install it again later?

I am also thinking it may be easier just to cut it completely out and then build a new stab and reuse the elevator.

Any ideas?

John Wells

My Feedback: (10)

I vote for carefully cutting it out, rebuilding and using the old elevator halves.

wind junkie

My Feedback: (1)

If you think you'll need to remove the stab again after this move, I suggest rather than cutting the stab in half, slice the elevators off at the hinges and make the hinges removeable using one or two pieces of long music wire and dubro or equivalent steel pin hinges which have removeable pins like these:

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...&I=LXD944&P=ML

I do a similar arrangement with the rudder on my giant scale yak so I can get it into my car.

Note you really only need to make one side removeable so you can slide the elevator out. For now, a broken scroll saw blade will probably be the easiest way to remove the stab if you slice along the top and bottom, then cut the elev hinges on one side so you can slide it out. Alternately, one of those segmented utility knives can be used by extending the new blade fully, and flexing it into the stab/fuse joint to cut the glue free the blades are very flexible and you can guide it into here if the glue isn't too hard.

For the stab itself, a small plywood platform in the fuse elevator slot with blind nuts and hard points made from 1/2" dowels into the stab will do the job to anchor it. To save weight, you could use 4x40 nylon screws into the blind nuts and possibly lite ply with CA wicked into the holes for the blind nuts into the ply platform.

I always have a heck of a time bringing my Fusion to Nashbro, so I may take my own advice here once I recover the plane. She's served me well but the original covering is needing a facelift big time.

If you don't need to make the stab removeable to do this again, I vote for John's solution as it will be the least amount of work. Using splints of 0.007 CF into the balsa will give you back all the strength into the stab when placed vertically (like sheer webs) and you can install them right through the covering maybe 4" long total. Two or three should do the job spaced equally front to back.

Gringo Flyer

My Feedback: (18)

I like the idea of making a removal stab and it seems like it would be pretty straightforward. The good thing about that is if you can get the fuse flat the fusion is very easy to transport. The only part I don't understand is the hinges. With the removal pin what do you do to keep the pins in place during flight?

The only other problem is that I use 1 elevator servo so the two halves are connected by a rod. I'm not sure how that would work in this setup.

wind junkie

My Feedback: (1)

Mine uses 2 elevator servos, but I think you may still get it to work if you make a socket for your joiner rod to plug into. You'll need to pull out the existing side of the joiner from one elevator half of course== the other can still be glued in place. Find a brass tube which fits around the joiner rod. If it is a metric size and you can't find a tube, you can make another joiner rod easily with a rod/tube combo that will fit.

The cotter pins in that picture I posted will not be used for the removable hinges instead use a piece of correctly sized music wire (one or two pieces== one if you can get it to go the entire length of the stab and clear everthing in the middle of the plane). You can use the standard steel pin hinges too, but you'll need to pull out the pins of course these just save you that step.

Bend a small "L" on one end of the pin to use while inserting into the hinges, and then tape this to the side of the elevator. Removal, insertion takes only seconds once the linkages are removed.