Brief Description: Installation Of Seat Pan & Back - Part 1
As challenging as the airframe was to align, so was the alignment of the seat pan and back. I must have had the seat pan on and off the airframe a couple dozen times. All excess figerglass cloth that was sticking up off the back of the seat pan had to be carefully sanded away to ensure that the seat would sit firmly on the airframe tubing. There was a large piece of loose glass in one of the narrow channels that was most difficult to smooth out and took the most time and preparation with sanding. At first, I couldn't get things very close to fitting at all. I noticed that after trying to foce the seatpan in to position, a small crack in the gel coat developed at the position of the cyclic bracket. This is the bracket that B.J. mentions grinding down in the Helicycle videos. I didn't really feel like messing with the integrity of this bracket, so I cut a 1-5/8" hole centered on the fiberglass centerline in front of this bracket. I will print out some sort of 3D plastic cap in the future and use this hole as an inspection hole later on. The cyclic bracket now sticks out of the fiberglass about 3/16". Once I did this modification the seat pan was then able to sit flat on the airframe. I found the key to making sure that everything lined up properly, was to start by clamping the seat pan on the airframe such that the left pedal bracket was centered in the fiberglass pocket. From here I clamped the collective pocket down in place. I marked the tabs of the seat back near the hood bracket tubes and ground out a small area to clear each tube. Once the notches were made, all the tabs seemed to line up quite well and only had to be adjusted slightly.
