Fabric at tailspring mount

[whee]

Has anyone left their tail spring mount area open like some of the Cub guys do?
P10206711.jpg

Our tube structure is a bit different back there and I'm keen to see if anyone has done it and how they accomplished it.

[jaredyates]

I'm reluctant to copy too many features of the Cub, lest I end up with its cruise speed.

[whee]

Haha! For sure, but I doubt this would cost much is any.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

It certainly appears to make things easy to inspect, doesn't it?

[tailwind]

Seems like the tail of one of Bob's planes is open in that area.

[Mark Moyle]

Piper doesn't have the two diagonals from the lower longeron to the tail post like the Bearhawk. The fix for the cracking tendency for the piper tail post is to remove the spring mount, slide a tube/sleeve up inside the tail post....rosette welds...then about 14" forward from the tail post add 3/8 X .049 tubing from the lower longeron to the diagonal above the longeron to create a rectangular box. I did that on my pacer....and covered the tail post completely.

[N134RT]

I have left the tail spring attachment area uncovered on several of the aircraft i have restored, and my current Bearhawk is the same. In addition, i have a removable access plate that begins at the forward tail spring attach bolt and extends to the next station forward. It makes a condition inspection so much easier and lessens the size of the access plates needed in the elevator bellcrank area. it has worked well for me.

[Rollie]

I considered leaving access there and covering it with sheet metal covers, but couldn't come up with anything that was going to work well and look decent. Then I decided that the tail on the Patrol is much more robust than on the Cubs anyway. So when my longerons break, which I have been assured happens to all bush planes eventually, (I'm thinking eventually could be a pretty long time) I'll have to do some fabric repairs along with the steel repairs. When this happened on my Pacer, the fabric part of the repair really wasn't that big of a deal anyway. And it wasn't noticeable at all unless you got right down under the stab and looked for it, with it being shaded by the tail feathers.

[whee]

Thanks guys. I've decided to keep things all covered.