TAIL BOOM SMOOTHS OUT – March 1, 2019
The tail boom was upgraded to a stiffer glide rail, shown as the gold colored piece in the image below, and in a close-up image below that shows how we lightened this rail by drilling spaced holes along its length. Weight is critical, and we have changed things as we moved along to save weight in different areas – sometimes by changing equipment that ended up heavier than predicted, and sometimes by modifying a piece, like this rail, when we found that it was stronger than we needed and could be lightened up by removing material. This rail mechanism is much stiffer and smoother than the earlier one. Since we can manually extend and retract the tail boom for flight testing, we will be powering it just after first flight.
