Educate me on tail fins!

[senior]

Was installing & control cables the other night & in order to do it correctly I had to slip the tail fin & elevator in place. My bud who's going to help me rebuild my plane says I lucky I have "The Large" tail fin. He's been a Taylor fan for yrs & has had a couple & built a couple & another one to do after mine is complete.
"Kool" I says
How can you tell the difference, I mean are they that much bigger?
How does that affect the planes handling both in the air & on the ground?
Is that why I see some Taylor float planes with extra fins & some not?

[Ragwing nut]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

postwar taylorcrafts had a taller vertical fin and shallower rudder.

[3Dreaming]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

The post war added about 4" to the leading edge and hieght of the vertical fin. The rudder area is about the same because they shortened the cord because of the increased height. I actually like the pre war better, because it slips better IMO. Tom

[Larry Lyons]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

I wondered why there were the 2 and 3 hinge types! But they changed the elevator hinge number too, any idea why?
Larry

[3Dreaming]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

I wondered why there were the 2 and 3 hinge types! But they changed the elevator hinge number too, any idea why?
Larry

You ever tried to hang a warped door on the hinges? At the factory when they covered the control surfaces they did it in a jig to keep the hinge lines straight. In the field when the pieces were starting to be recovered people would warp the hinge line. With 2 hinges the line can be warped, but you can still get the 2 hinge pins in. Tom

[3Dreaming]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

I wondered why there were the 2 and 3 hinge types! But they changed the elevator hinge number too, any idea why?
Larry

Your thought is a little backwards. The short rudder had the 3 hinges, and the taller one had 2. Tom

[Forrest Barber]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

The pre war three hinge was the follow on to the A Model.
Then they built the D models ( L-2 series) for the war effort. This tail , redesigned and 2 hinge ( easier to align) was used on the D or tandem Taylorcraft. After the War the D tail ( two hinge was used on the production side by side ships as they had made four spares for each D built for the Army ( standard procedure).
Soooo the "D" tail was quickly used on the BC12D of 1946 and some 45's.... they first used up all the three hinge from pre-war production.
With the two hinge, larger vertical surface aft of C.G. it was not really necessary to use the ventral fin on the seaplane with 1320's.

[Larry Lyons]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

Thanks Forrest, I just added info to my by line below!
Larry

[Forrest Barber]

Re: Educate me on tail fins!

We have a news man here that has the same thoughts. I even knew about the train guage , do you know the souce of the "perch" mesurement .
OLD Amish expression : So vie est there so many more orses ( horses)
asses dan der est orses??