The next task was installing the cables and pulleys that are used to connect the control column to the stabilator. The necessary hardware was rounded up along with the forward stabilator cables and pulleys.
Shortly after the above photo was taken, while attempting to install the first F-1247A cable, the feeling of joy and pride quickly diminished to feelings of total disbelief … self loathing, anger, and dismay. I had installed the right rudder cable into the wrong holes in both center channel bulkheads. Really??? DUH!!! It sucks … really sucks, because after figuring out how to reroute the cable without removing the entire rudder cable instillation, it was realized when attempting to connect the rudder cable onto the rudder horn the newly created F-1258 links are now to short because the correct holes for running the right rudder cable are lower … thus taking up more cable which will require a longer links.
Fellow builders can chuckle … it is not catastrophic … but the mistake will require remaking the F-1258 rudder links for the right side. Fortunately, the postage will cost more than the part … so it is not an expensive mistake. I think two factors played hand and hand with the mistake … first- normally only the holes in the center channel for the rudder cable have grommets and I placed grommets in all the holes. Second - the drawing showing the rudder cables and stabilator cables can be misleading if the builder is not very careful because the rudder cable switches positions aft of the center channel as can be seen in the following photo of the plans.
Note the blue markers point to the right rudder cable in a high hole. At the center channel the pink markers point to the rudder cable in a low hole.
Guess I must have referred to the above drawing too quickly and only noted the rudder cable position where the two blue markers are. Apparently, when running the cable forward from there, I used the same high position when traversing the center channel. Obviously, a senile delinquent moment!
With the right rudder cable now rerouted through the correct grommets, began trying to install the two forward stabilator cables … this proved to be another time sucking abyss and also raised some concerns, which will be addressed in the next post.
