Yep, I was in the airplane making airplane noises today and got caught by my dad who happened to look at my remote security camera feed at that time. I got a call while I was in the airplane, hmmm come to think of it that's a first in itself. Anyway I spent the last part of the week and the weekend doing quite a few little tasks. The most significant task being the installation of the Affordable Panels kit that replaces the stock Vans instrument panel with a model that has removable sections. See the pictures and you will see what I mean. I still have work to do on it but what you see took me all day today to get done.
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| The center rib has quite a number of parts that have to be fabricated and then installed on the rib before it gets installed. You can see several cleco's and they are all holding some of the parts. |
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| Here then forward top skin is installed for the first time. You can see the frame for the Affordable Panels modular panel kit. |
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| This is what the airplane looked like when I was making airplane noises. The seat was a little hard but that didn't slow me down. Actually what I was doing was placing the templates for the G3X screens on the panel so I could see what needed to be modified to make it all fit. In this picture you can see where I installed the left and right panels. The center panel is not installed but thats where the radios and the autopilot controller will go. |
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| I learned something I should have known already. The bushings for the grips are two different sizes. The passenger stick is smaller in diameter because it is made to be removable. |
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| Oh yea, I installed the ends on both pushrods. These are what connect the control stick to the elevator on the back of the tail. |
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| One more task I completed was to prep both wings for riveting the bottom skins on. Hopefully that will happen this week. |
