12 hours.
That’s right, yesterday and today, twelve hours. Putting on and taking off those covers is time-consuming, and along the way I discovered a bunch of little tasks I’d blown off until later. Well, later is now. So as I went along, I remade the right side fuel line so it fits better with the cover panel, I moved the Adel clamp on the return line under the tunnel cover, and I dressed the antenna cables on the left side. I’ll need to do the left fuel line as well, I think, but I have something there that works.
Mostly I wanted to get everything bolted, screwed, taped, and riveted onto the airplane that I could, to facilitate transportation to the hangar. There are about million things I’m going to have to box up and move or otherwise account for. If it’s on the airplane, installed where it’s supposed to go, I don’t have to worry about finding it later. A good part of that activity was installing the interior. Last night when I quit, I realized I’d have to install a lot of little Velcro hook disks to hold the carpet backing.. The instructions say you can rivet them to the floor panel or you can drill the holes out to 5/32 and use existing floor panel screws to attach them. I took the easy way out and drilled them out to 5/32.
As you can see, there are a lot of screws.
I didn’t take a lot of pictures of me installing all the Velcro. That’s boring. This is a shot of the Classic Aero Designs interior, installed, with carpeting, side panels, seats, the whole works. Now it looks almost like a real airplane!
Another view. This thing is now much more fun to sit in and make airplane noises.
This is the baggage compartment, looking aft between the seats. Putting the ‘mental’ in ‘experimental.’
Cowling on, canopy on, all skins done, ready for the move to OXR.
There are a few squawks I need to take care of:
1: Fuel pump overflow tube (yes, I still haven’t gotten to that)
2: Anti-chafe for the cabin heat tubing, like UHMW tape
3: End hardware for canopy side hinge pins.
4: Order 5-point restraint system
5: RTV around baffles, baffle-engine case interface, blast tube fittings
