I did the initial fitting of the empennage fairing tonight. These are from Fairings Etc. and the initial fit right out of the box was quite good (much better than the fairings from Van’s from what I’ve heard). I first used a heat gun on the leading edge to get it to lay down more smoothly on the fuselage.
These flanges were also different in length by about 1/2″, so I marked and trimmed the right one to match the left. It’s pretty tough to make this symmetrical since everything is curved, but I’m happy with how it turned out. I then drilled out one of the rivets on each side and tapped it for a #6 screw. I may end up installing nutplates here since I’d otherwise have to use thread locking compound to keep these from backing out.
I also drilled one hole on each side at the aft end of the horizontal stabilizer and installed a couple of #6 nutplates. The fit around the fuselage and horizontal stabilizer is great. I still need to do a little work to get the fit around the vertical stabilizer as nice, but I think this is going to turn out great.
