|
|
|
|
Marlins Web Site
|
Date: 4-28-2020
|
Number of Hours: 45.00
|
Manual Reference: Sec 9; DWGs 41-43
|
Brief Description: Aft Canopy Skirts (Cont.)
|
|
I took the remaining canopy skirt, flipped it upside-down and started over on the left-aft canopy skirt. This time I had a little better understanding of what I was doing. I thought I should be able to transfer the holes from my first attempt at the skirt so I made a template out of card board. That idea didn’t work because of the U-shaped bend and twist you have to put into the skin, you can’t do with cardboard or poster board; so, I was back at square-one. This time, the pulling, drilling, clecoing taping all went better until I got to the forward-bottom of the skirt. I had previously placed a wooden block between the canopy and the windscreen roll-bar to keep the canopy frame slightly raised on the slide rail in the canopy aft end. As you pull down and forward, the front part of the skirt starts to buckle and the aft end of the skirt pulls down tight against the fuselage. Since the canopy frame is slightly raised, the buckling affect is less when you drill, until you lower the canopy into its final position; then the buckle becomes pronounced. The only way to fix this is to elongate the hole. The bad news is, I had to elongate the hole too much for a rivet to hold properly…so it initially appeared like ruined another skin. I went on the internet to VAN’s Forum to see what other guys did because I couldn’t be the only person who experienced this issue. I found a solution to the elongated hole problem on this rear skirt; and that was to cover it with another skin. So, I created a narrower skirt to cover all the holes in the original skirt. This involved a lot of extra trimming, a lot of extra design to make the curves look good, and a considerable amount of time. In the end it looks pretty good. I did the same thing on the right side after receiving new aluminum.
|
|
Aft marks for curvature
|
|
Skirt to fix enlonged holes
|
|
Finally a real smile--it works
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2001-2024 Matronics. All Rights Reserved.
|
