I feel like I’ve been hitting a bunch of major milestones lately….I wonder if the progress will feel accelerated as the plane becomes more and more like a….. uh… plane. The picture above shows one of those big milestones. Having seats in a cockpit! That is literally one cushion away from being where I will sit during first flight!
To get there, I had to wrap up the seat ramp and console work. It started with the right side console installation. This is prime real estate for switches.. but for now it just needed to be fit.
The next big item was fabricating the cable anchor. This sits within the throttle quadrant to secure the throttle cables. The instructions just say “Make the Cable Anchor”. Easy enough right? It was a fun fabrication exercise.
With all parts prepped, it was time for priming. I’ll skip the photo collage on that as you’ve seen it before. Post prime, there were a lot of dimpling and nutplate installation to do. Then test fit.
Although it doesn’t call for it, I really wanted to see all the work put together. The seats, the seat floors, the seat ramps, and the consoles. In about an hour I was able to get everything fitted. We’ve got a cockpit!
Yes… I definitely want to sit in there… but I’ll wait a bit longer. Next up is a really big step. It’s time to attach the empennage!! Until then, Happy Building!
2 comments
What a gigantic step. I’m sure your spirit was above the Kármán once you had a chance to see the “ finished” product. Congratulations
that s pretty amazing, brother paolo… the flying canoe lives… crazy how simple everything is but when trussed up, so capable…and in the modern world the plastic we use to pretend its not like that…nobody is kicking you off the island…