Finish The Bottom Of The Fuselage - Top Flite Douglas DC-3 User Manual

of the horn on the elevator joiner wire. Move the elevator up
and down and make sure you can get all the throw
recommended on page 62 of the manual. If necessary,
enlarge the slot in F12 or the slot in the TE of the stab.
While we're at it, let's mount the elevator and
rudder servos.
Refer to this photo for the following six steps.
14. Use a 1/4" x 3/8" x 36" basswood stick to make
the servo rails. Glue the front rail between the main
stringers and to former F5. Use the servos to set the
location of the aft servo rail. Make sure you position the
aft rail with enough space to permit you to remove the
servos if you need to later on. Glue the aft rail to the side
stringers and the inner wing saddles.
15. Use the screws included with the servos to mount
your servos to the servo rails where shown on the plan.
16. Cut both pushrods to the correct length and silver
solder a threaded coupler to them.
17. Drill a 3/16" hole at the punch mark through the
die-cut 1/8" plywood guide tube holders. Slide four
guide tube holders over the elevator guide tube and two
guide tube holders over the rudder guide tube. Connect
the pushrods to the servos with a nylon clevis.
18. Make sure your pushrods are the correct length
and your clevises are threaded on the right amount so
that when your servos are centered, the rudder, tail gear
wire and the elevator are neutral. Now is the best time to
make adjustments if any are needed.
19. Glue the guide tube holders to the formers where
shown on the plan so the guide tubes align with the servos.
Position the guide tubes so the ends don't interfere with the
servos or controls. Glue the guide tubes to the formers and
tube holders with medium or thin CA.
20. Make sure the ball stud is secure on the rudder
steering arm with thread lock and the 0-80 nut. Glue the
tail gear plate to the main stringers. Keep the tail wheel
centered. Glue the rudder torque rod bearing tube to the
stab with medium CA. Be careful not to get any CA into
the bearing tube.
21. Unscrew the #2 screws that hold the tail gear
bracket to the tail gear plate and take the tail gear off the
plate. Set the tail gear and the screws aside for now.
DC-3 Fact
The one and only DC-1 served a full career with
TWA, then was sold to Howard Hughes. Hughes
sold the airplane to the Spanish government, but
the DC-1 met its demise after an engine failure
during takeoff in 1940. (Guess they didn't read the
"Engine Out" section in our manual.)
FINISH THE BOTTOM OF THE FUSE
1. Cut and glue the stringers for the aft right side of
the fuse bottom from three 3/16" x 3/16" x 30" balsa
sticks and glue them in place as shown in the photo.
The top stringer ends in the middle of former F6 (refer to
the photo at step four).
2. Sand the aft end of the stringers at F9A to
accommodate the bottom corner fillers.
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3. Cut two 15" long bottom corner fillers from the
1/4" x 1-3/4" x 30" balsa sheet. Trim the aft end of one of
one bottom corner filler to fit between the stringers at
F11. Glue that corner filler to formers 8 through 11 on
the right side of the fuse as shown in the photo and on
the plan. Sand the corner filler as shown in the cross
sections on the plan.
4. Glue the die-cut 1/8" balsa fuse doubler to formers
F5, F6 and F7, then glue a corner stringer between
former F7 and the front of the corner filler.
5. Glue the 3/32" x 3/16" x 30" stringers in the notches
of the formers in the front of the fuselage. Note that