The Tail Feathers

This is one of those Stiks that has the stab on the bottom of the fuselage so I just have to remember not to give full up when the model is on the ground or the counter balances will probably snag the ground and do some interesting damage.

At least I used enough hinges.

Moving the elevator servo to the rear of the fuselage eliminated those problems and also allowed me to remove a long pushrod which somewhat negates the weight gain at toward the rear of the fuselage.

The model was still slightly nose-heavy as well, so moving the servo was a good thing in a lot of respects.

The elevator servo provides very positive control and good centering.  I replaced the linkage shown here with one having an L-bend at the servo end and a 2-56 Dubro ball-link at the elevator horn.

The trailing edge of the elevator has been scalloped for a more classic Stik appearance.

I cut away approximately 1/8" of the leading edge and tips of the elevator and laminated on a few pieces of spruce.  The weeds here play havoc with tail surfaces low to the ground and the sharp trailing edges are easy to ding.  I felt a little hardwood would minimize some of this stuff.

Unfortunately, I forgot to glue on one lamination so the leading edges of the elevator and stabilizer don't match.

Now that I've flown the model I've decided I don't like the 3D elevator/stabilizer.  The model only needs 1/8" up and down to fly very well.  Every time I shoot a touch-and-go weeds get snagged between the counter balances and the stabilizer.

The triangle was radiused and coarse shaped prior to gluing it on.  The fuselage and stabilizer were fiberglassed prior to gluing the stabilizer on.  The triangle was then glued in place.

It was shaped and finish sanded with my nifty fillet sanders.  Finally it was glassed with the cloth overlapping onto the fuselage and stabilizer.

Not visible is a piece of 3/8" sheet balsa glued between the fuselage sides above the stabilizer for additional gluing area and to sink dowels for the tail wheel bracket.

Without hard points the balsa would have crushed much more.  A lot of us have done it that way for a long time but I've never liked it.

I could have threaded the control horn screws into the hard points but I didn't trust them not to become fuel-soaked and let go.  For security I went ahead and used the control horn backing plate on the underside of the elevator.

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