Rudder is On!

It has been almost 13 months since I “finished” assembling the rudder of my Bede BD-4C airplane. Until recently, all of the parts have been waiting patiently in plastic bags. Over the last ten days, I have been finishing up the steel parts for the counterbalance arm, painting everything, test fitting, disassembling, adjusting, reassembling, test fitting, etc., etc., etc.

Tonight, I finally riveted the rudder together and riveted it to the vertical stabilizer!

Here I am in my Rosie the Riveter pose:

The black bar in the foreground is the counterbalance arm, painted and ready to be attached.

You see the resemblance to the original Rosie, don’t you?

Here is the final result, with the counterbalance arm just visible on the top. (Our parrot, Robin Hood, is pointing it out with his feet. He approves of wings but has no use for vertical stabilizers or rudders.)

If you look closely, you will see something kind of unusual. The rudder hinge is attached to the skin on the right side. It is not centered in the middle of the rudder. It seemed funny to me to have the hinge off-center, until I realized the virtually every aileron I have ever seen on a small plane has the hinge off-center (on the top).