I think I might
have contributed to the small/big tail debate a cupla years or more ago.
Anyway, Mine has a large horizontal stab while maintaining the same span
elevator. One of the two options the local authority at the time recommended.
The builder chose this ‘cos he didn’t want to cut the horizontal stab and
rebuild with a full span elevator. You can just see the knuckles of the extra
25% span he added on each side.
Whatever, mine
flies well, and the only attempt I have had at flying a small tail was with
Bill Harrelson, who could only have wondered where the !@*^ this !@#&*^%
Aussie got a licence, such was the high level of PIO exhibited. (I reverted to
camera duty).
The end result it
seems to me, is if you have a large tail, keep it, and if you have a small
tail, keep it.
I don’t see the
point of major surgery when it probably won’t produce a result worth worrying
about.
Anyway, lads and
lasses, last year (May) I did a solo circumnavigation of continental
Australia. ‘Cos the Wx at the south west corner was bad on the day I departed
Perth, I had to cut inland by about a 100 NM before heading south to join the
coast at an old whaling station port called Albany – like New York’s Albany in
spelling. That plus a cupla other track shorts, and time limitation on the
Maintenance Release to the Annual, I wasn’t all that happy with the outcome,
so I did it again this year, and indeed satisfied the intent by being over
water all the way. Pretty much like Matty Flinders except he was in a sailing
ship and didn’t have three GPS’s. Well he did, but they were called sextants
in those days.
I attach a copy of
my GPS Google Earth track plot and trip data.
Ciao for
now
Dom
Crain
VH-CZJ