At left is the canard with it's first coat of micro on it.  This canard was factory laid up and is beautiful condition. 

The first order of business is to get it filled and shaped so that we can get the elevators positioned and mounted.  

In anticipation the shaping and all the sanding needed, we made sanding blocks as per other builders recommendation.   We figured that making these blocks would take 3-4 hours.  WRONG!  First we ran out of Bondo for the shaped sanding blocks.  Then it took more Bondo and fills than we had anticipated, etc., etc...  

Bottom line: I think there is about 8 hours in those 3 sanding blocks we made.  Here, have a look at the pictures taken along the way.

 

        

 

 Mayday! Mayday!!

Our canard is too short!!!   You'd think we would have measured it before we started, but "NO," we didn't. 

The problems started when we laid all our pieces out along the work bench to test fit the hardware.  With the two elevators laid out where we thought they should go, there just didn't seem to be room for the torque tubes.   We checked and rechecked our measurements on the torque tubes and elevators.  OK, so our elevators were 1" too long.  No problem, we could cut that!  But where did that extra 6 or 7 inches come from?

We'll if you eliminate all other possibilities, your worse case fears have to be the culprit!   But, how could that be?  The canard is a factory made part!  I'm sure it came out of a jig or mold and wouldn't be 6 inches short!!

OK, where are those drawings in the manual?  Let's see, the book calls for a canard of 147" in length.  You can clearly see from the picture at the left that..., "Houston, we have a problem!" 

141 inches!  Time to call Al Aldrich or Jeff Russell and see if they can shed any light on this development.  

A few e-mails and phone calls later, and we have our answer.  What we have is the "Short" version of the canard.  The difference between the two can best be described as about 50lbs more carrying capacity in the front two seats.  

But, what about that "Deep Stall" condition that has been an issue in the Velocity? 

We're told this has been tested and is not an issue on the Aerocanard.   Hey, I want that extra 50lbs in the front seats. We need an new canard.

Looks like we need to build a new canard. Stay tuned as the adventure begins.

 

 

 

 

 

 I d e a   T i m e ! ! !

After a few e-mails to other builders, Carlos Fernandez pointed out that the Velocity has 3 feet of canard after the spar.  Our Aerocanard has only about 11 inches right now.  So, the thought is to add the 3 inches.  I need to run this by Jeff Russell to get his take.   In the mean time, see my quick Flash demo below to get an overall feel for how we want to do this.  This Flash demo also points out a problem: how to join the glass surfaces?  There isn't much glass on the existing canard to make much of a splice.  About all you can do is add a second layer.   We're open to ideas.  If you have suggestions, please e-mail us at canards@aerocanard.org

 

 

 

 

Canvas Canopy attach points   We need to devise some means for mounting the front of our canvas cover. The challenge is to make some hardpoints or other mounting system that will support the canvas and build it into the Canard and winglets.