FIRST, MAKE THE PUSHRODS
I went to install the control sticks and all of the linkages up front and noticed something was missing. You are supposed to make a few elevator pushrods back in the empennage section that I must have skipped past. These things happen when your wing kit arrives and you get excited. Oh well. Time to make some pushrods. The good news is that I have already made a few for my ailerons back in the wing section so this was a familiar task. I also made the linkages that come off of the bottom of the sticks and connect to the various control surfaces (ailerons and elevators).
MAKING CONNECTIONS TO CONTROL SURFACES
There is no shortage of opportunities to bloody your knuckles while building an airplane. Jamming oversized hands into undersized openings in order to torque a few nuts into place is called for quite often. One of my favorite tools that I discovered during my elevator attachment is a washer wrench. This little guy will apply friction to the perimeter of your washer and allow you to jam it into a small gap while threading a bolt through it. This happens many times when attaching the control sticks to the various linkages. The work itself is not terribly difficult, but you do need to follow Van’s advice pretty closely.
There is a fairly detailed method for ensuring that you drill the holes in the bottom of the control sticks perfectly. Stick to it (pun intended of course). Another part this isn’t difficult but time consuming is making sure that the spacers the bolts go through are sized appropriately. Too big and the motion is sticky. Too loose and the control surfaces don’t hold in place. Go slow and it will work out just fine.
