Cabin cover started

We got started on section 43, the cabin cover, which is the largest fiberglass part of the build. It starts with making some markings for later drilling the door flange:

Cabin cover door flange hole reference markings

It quickly jumps to trimming and sanding the cover. We trimmed the edges with a Dremel oscilating tool, then sanded with a combination of an orbital sander, sanding block and Dremel rotating tool, and that has taken almost 10 hours of work so far:

Trimming the mid-side skin flange on the cabin cover

Sanding the cover flanges

And more sanding of the flanges

The corners of the door flange need some additional sanding and a notch to fit around the mid-cabin deck flange:

Notch on the corner of the door flange

After 5 attempts and many hours sanding and trimming, the cabin cover finally fit properly:

Cabin cover fitted against side skin and tailcone bulkhead

Mid-side skin flange clearing the longeron

Tailcone forward top skin fitted over the cabin cover

Victory! Cabin cover fits!

In the process, I also found that the scribe lines are pretty much useless, since they don't match at all the required dimensions:

Trim line doesn't match the dimension on the plans

There's still a lot more sanding and trimming to be done - I haven't trimmed the other window flange, the inside of the door flanges, or the windshield flange, and the tailcone top skin flange could use some slight sanding to not push against the bulkhead.

Time lapse:


Total cabin cover rivets: 0
Total cabin cover time: 16.3h

Brake lines done

I got the fuel hoses from Aircraft Specialty, and installed the one that's done in this section, and torqued all the fittings:


This involved enlarging the system bracket holes a little more (to 5/8"), and splitting the AN931-6-10 grommets so I could put them around the hoses (I also took the opportunity and did the same for the fuel hose holes, to 7/16" for AN931-7-11 grommets).

Time lapse:


Total brake line rivets: 8
Total brake line time: 11.0h