The Horror of the Horizontal Stabilizer.

As I have stated, there were some parts I can no longer find for the PIK. I knew there would be a challenge doing the repairs on this plan, since there is no support services out there that cater to the PIK glider needs.

After making the damage assessment, I found that there were a few parts I needed to complete the repairs. The T-mount for the vertical stabilizer which aligns and hold the horizontal in place, a couple of push rods, a bearing mount for the horizontal stabilizer, and the elevator.

As mentioned in the earlier post, the many attempts to locate parts were a total bust. My connection at the airport did not have parts, or the ability to fabricate the parts based on the drawings. But I was given the name of a machine shop that fabricated MIL spec parts, so I approached them with a set of drawings from PIK provided by the Finnish Transportation Dept.

Upon review of the drawings, and advice from my AP-IA, the first part fabrication was improved on and approved.

The first part to be recreated was the T-alignment mount for the tail.

The drawing spec’s a folded and welded structure, ...

.. but as the wrecked piece indicated, the hollow piece is easy to bend.

The machine shop used the spec's from the drawing, including the type steel used, and created a CNC duplicate part. Since we plan on changing the type certification to experimental, the replacement part (lower right) was acceptable and is just like the newer ones used on gliders today.

It was just a tad thinner, due to the available material thickness, but since the part mounts aft of the tail support wall, the horizontal stabilizer aligns perfectly, and fits snugly!

The next repair was to the bearing mount that was broken of during the crash. After removing bearing from the center rib in the stabilizer, I notice that the mounting tabs were torn from the bolt socket.

I had to have a new mount made,


... so back to the machine shop with drawings in hand. They used the original socket, but welded new tabs to the stem. And with a new bearing, we are ready to install it back into the stabilizer!

The mount was painted with chromate and DCC to protect it from oxidation.

With a cleaned out and enlarge opening, I bolted the support mount back on the center rib.

I then created a cover plate using the material from the other wrecked PIK (you will see me doing this a lot over the next months).

The plug was glued in using epoxy paste and taped down till it was cured.

The nest step was to scarf off the old glass around the plug to re-glass the repair.

The glass will be applied per the repair manual, then to the paint shop.