Show us the status of your 7/7A project! - Page 4

sslayden · #31 12-21-2005, 11:40 PM

Mark, how did you get your roll bar chromed? Are there shops that do this for you? Can you do it yourself? How well does it hold up? It looks fantastic!

mark manda · #32 12-22-2005, 02:27 AM

Bob, I'm already bumping my knee. Can I just trim about a 1/2" off both sides then?

If I had to do it all over again, I'd chrome the whole canopy--I just wanted the pedals and rudders at first.
I paid about $700 IIRC;
chroming stuff gets you criticized a bit.

bob, I lucked out and got a really smooth transition top skin to the glass; can't feel anything and I'll just
have a paint line. so I'm really pleased at the moment.

mark

Bob Axsom · #33 12-22-2005, 03:20 AM

Reference the photo that includes your engine controls. Mark I tried to send a private message but the system told me your message box is full - so here it is:

I made an assumption that you made the sub panel the way I did - cut it from an aluminum angle. You have it radiused as I did but it extends into your leg area way beyond where it has to, to support the engine controls. I initially had 4 controls down there so mine was really wide. I disconnected all four controls from the engine and completely removed them. I drilled a hole in the main panel and moved the carb heat up there. Then I dismounted the subpanel and cut the exposed face width down to where it was just wide enough to hold the remaining three control mounting hardware with no excessive overhang (it looks like you could reduce your subpanel width about 1" on each side). Then I put everything back together and we have had no more problems. In my case it was so bad that I believe I may have actually redrilled the mounting holes in the sub panel to allow me to move it over to the right to recenter the remaining three controls as well. My experience made me sensitive to the problem and when I saw your subpanel extending sideways beyond where it had to, to support the controls I said "thats something that could be done better." It will not keep you from banging you knee directly on the control itself when getting in but you will become deft at contorting your body just so to slip it into the pilot hole without injury (procedural fix). It is on those 3-12 hour flying days that you become irritated (sometimes painfully) by any hard narrow edges that extend into your leg space and that requires a hardware fix.

Bob Axsom

Jamie · #34 12-22-2005, 10:14 AM

I'm fitting up my panel right now and I've been considering putting my engine controls on the panel itself in order to maximize knee room. I have fairly big legs (due to my old days of collegiate wrestling...yeah...that's my excuse). I've got most of my RV time in Kahuna's -6A and I found the subpanel to be more annoying than the gear leg weldments in terms of ergonomics. Does anyone see why you couldn't just put the engine controls up on the panel? My panel is going to be fairly straight-forward VFR and I don't forsee any sort of real estate issue.

Bob Axsom · #35 12-22-2005, 11:05 AM

There is absolutely no reason you cannot put the controls in the panel if you have the room. The cable lengths and routing need to be completed by you and there is nothing that dictates where they have to go.

Bob Axsom

aparchment · #36 12-22-2005, 02:21 PM

Hey Jamie:

Hope you don't mind me butting in here -- I was just thinking two things, first that the only other concern you have re engine control placement is resale value, and second have you thought about putting the engine controls on a center console between the seats. The console wouldn't even have to extend all the way to the panel so that you could still have room to spread out on long flights. The Diamond Star that I fly has center console engine controls as well as a stick, and I like the setup quite a bit, except for the quandary of what to do with charts when I have someone in the passenger seat.

Antony