Brad's been chunking along at the cockpit interior parts, including bulkhead #3, bulkhead #6, and the instrument pod.
Two photos of the rough instrument pod plug. This foam and masonite assembly will get glassed, primered, sanded, and polished. Then Brad will pull a two- or three-piece mold from it, and we'll use that to make the external instrument pod hood. We'll use a squish mold taken inside the hood to make the mold for the instrument panel itself.
A pair of longitudinal stiffeners that Brad added to his mid-fuselage.
The plug for bulkhead number 3. This bulkhead goes under the pilot's knees, and stiffens the fuselage and the cockpit floor in that area.
Brad has installed a pitot tube and a socket for an ILEC TE/static probe in his vertical fin.
The mold for bulkhead #6, looking a little less like Han Solo embedded in carbonite.
Looking forward at the instrument pod. This height proved a little too tall, and occluded some forward visibility, so Brad shortened the pod about a half inch.
The Dratec primed bulkhead #3 plug.
The generic male mold for the side angle stiffeners. Brad will make both cockpit side stiffeners using this mold, trim and fit them in situ, and later shear-tape them solidly into the fuselage. The side stiffeners guard the primary flight control push-pull tubes, stiffen the cockpit in bending and torsion, anchor the safety harness lap belts, and absorb energy longitudinally in a crash. Note that these stiffeners aren't "armrests." Though they run parallel to the real armrests, they're located too low in the cockpit to perform that function. The real armrests will be separate removable molded pieces that guard the secondary control (flap, airbrake, undercarriage) clusters and PP tubes.
Homebuilt aviation is not for folks who don't try things at home.
page updated 28 March 2008 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2008 HP Aircraft,
LLC