Fuselage March 2007 Updates
March 11, 2007
More Fab and Rollbar fitting - 4 hrs

Saturday I had to go to Austin for Derek's bowling tournament. After that I spent the rest of the day with Jeff Bordelon. We went over to Jim's house to watch the move of his 9A to his hangar in Georgetown. Man he did an awesome job of a one piece carbon fiber layup for his sliding canopy. I think I am going to give this a try on mine. Anyway the tow truck driver kept giving him the run around but he finally got it done by the end of the day. We went out and checked out Jeff's new property out in the country by Taylor. He is planning on building out there and he is going to hangar at the Taylor airport so that should be convienent.

Today I did lots of little things. First I fabbed up stiffener that mounts on the right side of the center rib that runs from the back of the panel to the firewall. Then I mounted the angle stiffener I fabbed last week and match drilled it to the left side of the stiffener along with the other one on the right. Took this all apart and deburred and dimpled and then put it all back in place to recheck the rollbar with the center brace. I had to cut about an inch off the center brace. Originally I thought it fit fine but the roll bar was not fitting flush with the canopy decks and in talking with Jim he gave me some tips to check. He was correct so with the panel out I was able to see the tab where the center bar enters from the top and made everything fit correctly. Before drill the 2 holes in the tab I am going to cut and drill the sliding channels and test fit the canopy sliding structure.

I also drilled out the holes in the bottom for the flap rods. I took some pictures of Jeffs cuts for accuracy. They should be pretty close but I will wait to drill more until I have the wings on. Last I drilled and clecoed the arm stiffeners that Jeff made for me. These will really brace up the armrests nicely.


This website was built to document my work in compliance with the FAA requirements needed to certify my aircraft.
My experiences and comments are by no means to be considered as instructions on how to build any aircraft.