Fin & Rudder

I picked up my 303 kit on December 16, 1998. I completed my inventory and over the next few days I got everything arranged the way I wanted. A friend came over to take a look at what I had received from Fisher. He had considered building a Fisher aircraft in the past. He was impressed with the quality of the wood and blueprints.

What to build first. I was considering building the fuselage first. While he was there I pulled the blueprints out for the fuselage. He said " looks real simple " because he was use to using blueprints in previous jobs. I had never used blueprints before and I had no idea what I was looking at. I decided then that I better start with something a bit smaller and hopefully more simple. He suggested I start out with the fin or rudder. The fin and rudder were on the same blueprint., and I still had no idea what I was looking at. My friend spent some time showing me the basics of blueprints. He left and I was on my own.

I spent about five days total and about ten hours just learning how to read them. After that period of time the blueprints were easy to read. I knew where every piece of wood would go on the fin and rudder. After some building under my belt I will still spend a number of hours or how ever how long it takes going over a new set of blueprints. I want to understand what I am doing and and how I am going to do it. Doing this has saved me some problems.

I started construction on Christmas morning 1998 at 7:30am.

This photo shows the leading edge of the fin and the trailing edge of the rudder being installed.

This is the only photo I took in reference to the construction of the fin and rudder. I wasn't thinking of taking any pictures at the time. I was only interested in build .

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