Two years ago, I was doing a normal fly –by with my KATANA when suddenly the tail virtually exploded! It tore the vertical stab completely off and also partially destroyed the elevator:
Fortunately, there was enough elevator control surface left that allowed me to have a fairly safe landing so the rest of the plane remained in one big piece rather then re-kitting itself. By a stroke of luck, last year while retrieving a downed plane in the corn the missing pieces of the rudder and horizontal stab of the KATANA were discovered. I kept the pieces and over the winter I decided to see if I could rebuild the plane’s tail feathers.
I had very little to go on rebuilding the rudder. All I had was a small piece of the vertical stab.
I decided on using solid wood rather than using sticks like I did with the elevator repair. It was a lot easier cutting out holes then trying to guess how to rebuild a rudder from scratch.
The right side of the elevator was easy to rebuild because I was able to use the remaining left side as a template to construct the missing right side piece.(#3) and (#4) . Photo (#5) shows the completed project.
I am pleased to report that the KATANA has rejoined my fleet of flying airplanes as seen in the cover photo!
This article was sent in from Ralph Doyle. Just some simple text in an email and a few pictures and you can contribute to the Website like Ralph!
-Ralph Grant
