October 7, 2006 - Forward Upper Fuselage |
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| I clecoed together the forward upper fuselage structure and put it into the fuselage for the first time. | ||||||
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The panel ribs fit nicely to the firewall.
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| I bent the three subpanels slightly so they would fit in the fuselage better. The drawings showed a bend in the subpanels but the instructions didn't say anything about bending them. Oh well, we'll see how it turns out. | ||||||
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The bend improved the fit between the side subpanels and the fuselage
sides.
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| I clecoed the assembly back together again and put it back in the fuselage. | ||||||
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| I couldn't resist placing the Panel in the fuselage for the very first time. I made some paper templates of avionics I'm going to put on my panel. Shown here are the Dynon FlightDek-180, a Garmin 496 in an Airgizmos mount, a Garmin SL-30 Nav/Comm and a Garmin GTX-327 Transponder. | ||||||
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| The instructions call for drawing a line down the middle of the long rib and the firewall flange. This is critical for match-drilling them, using the skin as a template. It's a simple, but very effective technique. | ||||||
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| The forward skin resting on the assembly. The skin is relatively thick and I thought it would be a bear getting it on. | ||||||
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But it was easier than I had expected.
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| I placed the forward canopy frame in the fuselage to get an idea how much it would obstruct things behind the panel. | ||||||
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I match-drilled the three ribs and firewall flange, using the skin as a
template.
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