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"Most would think this push tube cover is nonstructural and only to keep
dirt out of the elevator controls. Not so. It reinforces this area of the
skin and transfers the load from the aft fuselage and horizontal stabilizer
to the gearbox area."
That's good to know- I'm glad I haven't installed mine yet. Now I'll use
Hysol rather than flox.
When the fuselage is inverted on a rotisserie that area does kink. When
upright, the flanges go wavy between the FS172 and FS208 bulkheads, indicating
they are compressed. Before doing interior structural work I support the
area under the main gear box assembly with a board on top of a car jack. The
finger between the gear openings makes a very good pointer to indicate just
when the fuselage is correctly supported. Too high and it kinks- when it
straightens out I figure it's just right.
The picture is to show the load path- I imagine the elevator idler mount
transfers some of the compressive force from the tail through the FS172 bulkhead
to the push rod cover. The idler mount seems heavier than needed to support
the idler arm forces and I was going to cut out some areas for weight
reduction. Perhaps I should rethink that. The holes I drilled in the tunnel support might not've been such a good idea either. They did save more than an ounce though.
From Charlie Kohler's description the floor area and the support piece
forward of the tube are not sufficient to transfer the load- should there be a
reinforcement connecting the bulkhead to the flange of the main gear ox? -Bill Wade
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