Building the (Old) FLYLINE Great Lakes 2T-1A Kit (13)

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If you go back and look at the first entry in my series on this airplane, you’ll see that the plans describe building the fixed horizontal tail (stabilizer) as a single piece to be glued in place as part of the tail assermbly, with the intention that the covering of the stabilizer and that of the fuselage sides at that point will meet in a right angle intersection, perhaps including some kind of fillet, and become a one-piece structure. The model will fly just fine this way, but it is not the way the full scale airplane was built. Like many light aircraft of the period, both monoplanes and biplanes, the Great Lakes 2T-1A featured a horizontal tail surface built of welded steel tubing in two matching halves, right and left. These were joined through the fuselage by a simple assembly of more steel tubing and bolted in place. After beginning the construction, I realized that as a confirmed scale guy I would never be happy with the model unless I modified it to represent the full scale structure. This was actually not at all difficult…here’s how I did it.

The first step was to cut out all of the structure that was intended to lie between the fuselage longerons and make new inner ends for each stabilizer half from 3/16″ sq. balsa. Then, using drawings of the full scale airplane I located the forward carry-through tube, drilled out the requisite holes, and installed pieces of 1/8″ O.D. aluminum tube. I also drilled out the trailing edge on each side and inset another short length of tube.

As designed, the horizontal stabilizer is intended to slip through a slot formed by 3/16" sq. balsa inserts parallel to the upper longerons. No provision is made for the "lay" of the covering across the fuselage stringers to match up with any defined structural edge...this translates into a sloppy seam at best. I filled the entire open area beneath the top longerons with inserts cut from 3/8" sheet balsa, with the front end rounded to provide a finished edge under the covering.

I trimmed the inserts to lie flush with the outside surface as defined by the top longerons and stringers, so that the covering will adhere smoothly to the finished surface. The good ol' No. 11 blade makes an easy start of the job.

Here's the insert in the right side of the fuselage after I sanded it flush and smooth.

I added a sheet balsa reinforcement plate between the fuselage sides and then drilled through from the outside to insert lengths of aluminum tubing to locate the carbon fiber carry-through rods. Here you can see the right surface half in place, with the left section ready to slip over the rods. I won't use any adhesive on these connections so that the stabilizer halves will be removeable. However, there will be functional wire bracing on the entire tail assembly that will prevent movement sideways.

This is the fixed vertical fin with all the reinforcement and filler inserts and the aluminum carry-through tubes in place. I added extra tubing thickness to the front location for extra stiffness. The structure around the base of the fin is SUPPOSED to be open like that...later I'll show you how to do a fabric fairing that will finish everything off neatly.

2 Comments

  1. Bob,

    Thanks for posting this build, I built one of these back in the early 90″s and really loved it, I switched engines and forgot to re-do the cg and that was the end of that…

    I have loved the Great Lakes ever since, I picked up another kit and want to build it soon and go with electric as I too have started to convert to electrics.

    I’ll be watching your progress, thanks again

    Brian

  2. Fun to watch the progress on this build. I am planing to build this kit that I have had for years and very happy to have found this site before attempting it.

    Very nice site with great photography showing the steps.

    Thanks,
    Bart Hunt

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