After the season has ended, and you've taken a much needed break from it all. TAKE CARE OF YOUR AIRCRAFT! Clean it inside and out, and look for corrosion that will cause problems later.
If you unskin your aircraft outside, be sure to tie the elevator push pull tube. When the wind blows it vibrates so much it will break the ends off at the attach point.
Most of the corrosion is going to be in the area where the stainless steel female receptical of the dzus fastiner is riveted to the aluminum. The best way I have found to clean up the corrosion is to get a portable sand blaster. Use medium grit glass beads. DO NOT USE SAND. The glass beads removes the corrosion and not the parent metal. It gets a bit messy, but most of it rinses out with water. After it dries out the rest of the beads can be blown out with an air nozzle.
The rod end bearing on the end of the trim rod may be frozen. Remove the attach bolt to check it out. We had a bolt break on one of our aircraft because the rod end was bad. The aircraft we are cleaning up now also had a bad rod end. Also, check all cables and pulleys and anything else you can touch.
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