Friday, April 24, 2009

Elevators Next

Next up are the elevators. Below is the blueprint for the right elevator. It's built before the left elevator which has a trim tab making it more difficult.

The elevators are control surfaces like the rudder. They have thinner skins and light weight stiffeners. The flying surfaces that support the weight of the aircraft in flight like the horizontal and vertical stabilizers have thicker skins and heavier ribs. I've noticed that as the building has progressed, it's gotten more challenging. I guess Van wants to ease us into the hard stuff. Sounds kind of addicting, doesn't it?

2 comments:

  1. what's an elevator?

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  2. Shel10401, An elevator on an airplane is what makes it go up and down. Think about a rudder on a boat. It makes it got left and right. A plane has a rudder to make it go left and right and since it flies in 3 dimensions, it needs something to make it to up and down. That's an elevators job.

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