Category Archives: Ailerons

Service Bulletins

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While having some down time at home that I can’t do much productive anything with, I decided to research quite a few things while lying in bed after surgery.  One of those was service bulletins.  There are a handful out there for the RV-10 and are a lot like AD’s issued by the FAA, but they are not mandatory by law.  Highly recommended, however, so in the home built world, you comply with them.  With this being a build log, I wanted to document them here and then I’ll make the associated entries in the air frame log book once I have one.

The empenage kit (oldest original kit) was delivered in October 2005 to the original builder, thus I have only addressed those SB’s relating to the dates affecting our kits.

SB 06-2-3 is for the vertical stabilizer rudder mount.  This SB was completed by the original builder and complies with all aspects of the SB.  I could not get a good picture inside a tiny access hole, however, visually confirmed the doubler plate is in place inside the main spar of the VS.

SB 06-9-20 is for the trim cable anchor nut on the elevators.  While our kit does have the double welded nut, I chose to upgrade to the CNC machined piece by IFLYRV10.com.

SB 08-6-1 is for the F-1010 bulkhead near the vertical stabilizer in the tail cone.  My kit came with the SB contents and I completed it as part of the original build of the tail cone.

SB 16-03-28 is for the aileron hinge brackets possibly cracking on the inboard aileron mount.  I have removed the portion of the gap fairing to allow future inspection and no further action is needed until flying, at which time an annual inspection of the bracket must be made and noted in the log.

There are other SB’s that will affect our build, however, I have not gotten to that stage of the build yet, so will cover it in another post.

I’ll be right back under construction

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After almost a year and a half, construction on our RV-10 is back under way!  Now that the new shop is done and organized (check out the Garage Part Deux), I’m making time to get the build back on the top of the priority list.  With as much time away as I’ve had, I decided it’d be a good idea to review the plans and remember just where I had left off.  The last check mark was in the aileron rigging section, so that’s where I dove in.  I decided to go ahead and rig the control surfaces before riveting the bottom skin on just to have easier access and am glad I did.  If needed, I can always remove the large pushrod now that it’s all tweaked to have the surfaces lined up properly with the control arms.  I also added the spring attachment points for the aileron trim servo, having made the servo mount a while back.

Next up is buttoning up the wing bottoms.  I took a long last look at both before moving forward and read a lot of blogs to see if I could do anything else before losing easy acces.  I’m glad I did because I realized I had the trim servo wiring going to the wrong spar location.  That was a quick fix and I’m now confident I’m ready to put the bottom skins on.  The only item left to add is the pitot tube mount, but the bottom skin has to be attached first.


I did have to modify the rack yet again as the carpet post was too tall and blocking a few rivets.  A quick fix with the circular saw and reattaching the carpet.  Not a whole lot of exciting details, as it’s a lot of basic processes with a lot of repetition.  Good practice to get me back into the swing of aircraft construction, though; and I’m really enjoying being out in the shop working again.  Unfortunately, I’ll have to take another few weeks off for back surgery recovery, but at least I got a start on it again!

Wing feathers

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Ailerons are the next project on the wings and I was able to pull all the parts down from the racks while putting away the fuselage.  As with the elevators and rudder, it’s a pretty straight forward process.  I did have a personal problem of keeping the parts labeled correctly.  When I dissassemble, I typically use sharpie marker to label the parts.  Problem is when you clean them prior to priming, the sharpie comes off.  You can tell your self that you’ll remember or set them in order, but something always happens.  I’ll have a plan before attacking the flaps.

It was a tight fit to buck the bottom skin onto the spar,  so the Mrs. came out to insert rivets while I kept my hand burried in the skins.  As with the elevators, I elected to not proseal the trailing edges.  Withpatience   and a good balanced approach, you can get great results  back riveting the trailing edge right away and without all the mess.

I went ahead and bolted both sides onto the wings once complete.   They fit well and add a lot of surface area to the wings, which makes you feel like progress is being made!  I’ll tackle the controls before riveting on the bottom wing skins.  Flaps are up next.

In other news lately

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In between the fuel tank tasks, I’ve been able to tackle a lot of smaller projects and tasks.  In no particular order, here’s what else I’ve been working on.

Aileron trim servo:  This was a pretty easy project, assembling the trim mounting which is actually built on an access panel that will mount to the bottom of the left wing.  Along with the actuator arm and some hidden hardware, the assembly attaches via springs to the aileron pushrod inside of the wing.  The actual servo is also hidden under the bracket.  I’ve ran trim servo wire from the wing root to the servo location and will have a disconnect to make mainenance simple.



Flap gap fairing:  These are long pieces that fill the void between the rear spar and top wing skin and provide better aerodynamics for the flap.  They were pretty easy to install and finally filled the reminaining line of rivet holes in the rear spar.  I was surprised at how much rigidity it also provides to the top wing skin where it overlaps the flaps.



Switches:  I wanted to get an idea of what my Apem switches were going to look like lit up and ensure that I could gget the lighting to behave like I want it to.  Each switch has two independent LEDs  and the switch itself is DPDT.  What others have done worked for me usiing one pole of the switch to control the bottom LED which provides a status indicator for the switch.   The top LED will be controlled with  an on/dimmer dial  and linked to a FDS LC-50 lighting controller which will control all interior and panel lighting.  There is a bit of bleed  on the lighting but I think it will have minimal impact  once installed.



Flying:  It’s really important to me to keep flying throughout my  build.  Rather than the typpical 172, I got a chance to take a ride in a Champ to go eat lunch and check out some other RV’s with a new friend.  It was a great day and I really enjoied my first tail dragger flight!!