I've had two visits from RV-7 builders in the last few weeks - Chris Cox from Vancouver, and Alexandre Menezes from Brazil. Chris also works for Transport Canada, and we met through another TC RV builder. Chris is getting ready to start his electrical system, and is somewhat spooked by it. He was in town for a meeting, so came by to see how not to do an electrical system :). Alex somehow found my web page from Brazil, and stopped by as he is in Ottawa for a few months. He built the first RV-7 in Brazil.

I've been making slow, steady progress the last few weeks. I had fallen off the step in terms of hours spent in the garage, so I've been slowly working the pace back up. I've gotten bogged down in fibreglas work, which I don't enjoy, so that has sapped my motivation. But I am getting closer to the end there, so I think I can see the light at the end of the fibreglas tunnel.

I've crossed a small number of things off the snag list, but I've found many new issues to sort out. In the old days, I would simply add it to the snag list, and forget about it. Now I try to close off issues as soon as I find them.

I decided to start at the tail, and work forward, looking for things that needed doing. The first item that caught my eye was the rudder bottom fairing. I had gotten the main part of it done a long time ago, but I had never finished the little removable part at the front. The fairing comes in one piece, but there is no way to fit it around the rudder horn without cutting it in two pieces. I decided to cut slits in the main part, so it would fit over the rudder horn when pushed forward, and to make the top forward part removable. I even made a neat tab that held the front part in place at the centre. It was a work of art, but my idea for running the nav/strobe light cable didn't work out, so the idea blew up.

I had planned to run the cable up the aft side of the vertical stabilizer spar, then bring it down into the rudder bottom fairing. But there wasn't enough clearance between the front to the rudder bottom fairing and the spar for the cable. So, I needed to cut a large hole in the front of the rudder fairing to run the cable through, which interfered with my nifty locating tab. I hacked the tab off, and found that I didn't really need it.


Here is a view with the rudder pushed hard left. You can see where I had to hack some divots out of the removable part to clear the bolt heads that hold the VS spar to the fuselage.


I ran the nav/strobe cable through the VS spar just below the lower hinge bracket.


I used an Adel clamp on a stand-off to hold the cable in place to the bottom of the rudder. That ensures that it doesn't rub against the top or bottom of the slot in the fibreglas.


Here you can see what the front of the main part of the bottom rudder fairing looks like.


Here is a show showing how the removable part fits. The nav/strobe cable goes through the slot between the two pieces of fibreglas.