I find when I have some bulky items in the back, like sleeping bags & such, it's hard to dig down to the floor to hook my cargo net. I wish I had some hardpoints/hooks about halfway down the sides as well!
That's good feedback. The sides are double-walled up about half way to the longerons. Any reason not to add some tie down points at the upper corners of the double wall?
2. if you hit something at speed, your 100 lb cargo can quickly become a 1000 lb juggernaut trying to mash you against the dash.
Just sayin'. .........maybe we should have cargo cables running to the tail like the seatbelts eh?
Yep. That's partly the distinction I was trying to draw. Securing the baggage for turbulence doesn't require much. Only up to about 300 lb of force, and primarily in the vertical direction. If that's the goal, then almost anything already mentioned will do. Whereas really securing the baggage for crash-worthiness imposes requirements that are much harder to meet, and probably nothing mentioned yet (other than your cable idea) will do. The crash survivability threshold is somewhere around 50 g. And at 50 g, 100 lb of baggage can exert 5000 lb of force. That's a lot of force! And as you pointed out, in a crash scenario, the force may act to project the load forward toward the occupants rather than up toward the ceiling. So, creating a restraint system to keep the load from moving forward would also be an entirely different design problem.
3. If you have to egress in a hurry, is the important stuff on top?....with a quick release so you can grab it and go? or get to the fire extinguisher?
.....02 tanks? etc. etc. My stuff tends to be at the very bottom!
Yeah, it pays to think about how you want to distribute your load. Number of factors there. One good rule of thumb would be to put the big heavy rigid stuff on bottom, and light soft stuff up top. And what you may need to get to in a hurry, like you said, is another consideration.
About the fire extinguisher, personally, I wouldn't want it to be in the baggage area at all. Wouldn't want to have to turn around and fish for it behind me when I need it. Also wouldn't want it to hit me in the back of the head in a crash.
While building I installed several nutplates for AN4 bolts in corner baggage locations planning for tiedown rings. Then full interior came in... covered everything.
I gave Classic Aero the dimensions for clearance areas in the baggage carpet to fit around my tie down points. No big deal. Should be arriving later this week.
