More details and selection of materials is made. I will get a 4' length of each size steel tube and see what bending will be like. Using Aluminum would make bending easier but I really want the stiffness from steel tubing in the frame, especially for the large bow at the windshield. The RV-8 uses the windshield bow as rollover protection but I have a piece of structure behind the seat for that purpose. Still it would be nice to have similar strength up front so the forward section cannot be crushed down so far.
Figure 1: The concept looking aft at the canopy bow. It provides some concept of how the slide area will be built up to match the slide dimensions.
Figure 2: The concept from the left side. I have been working through iterations on material selection and thickness to best interface with the slide mechanism.
