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Canopy removal skirt interference

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ILikePike

Well Known Member
I am working on the canopy skirt and figuring out how to shape the rear. Should I be overly concerned with canopy removal as it relates to interference with the VS fairing or are there simple modifications to the rear of the canopy rail to help with easy removal?
 
Mine does interfere. I have to remove the tail intersect fairing + be very careful when installing or removing the canopy, or I'll scratch the fiberglass skirt at the back. Maybe I should have made it 1/2" shorter...
 
Most -8's I have seen have had the rear of the skirt modified a little to allow it to clear the empennage fairing for removal - it is pretty easy to do, and there are many ways it has been done. This is a good thing to photograph at fly-ins!
 
Canopy

Another solution is to shorten the upper slide rail or put a notch in it to where the UHMW slide will come up off the rail sooner. Kinda hard to "splain" but if you slide the canopy back and forth you will see.

Cut it or notch it just aft of where the rear slider comes to rest when the canopy hits the back stop. IIRC, there's a screw at the very end of the strip, so I notched mine. Wish I had a pic.
 
Thanks for all the info.
The solution I am thinking about would be to add a nut plate on the back scew of the top rail to make it easily removable. Then replace the next rivet forward with a flush screw by drilling a taping the rail or another nut plate. Then the last 2" of the flat top rail C-804 could be cut and made removable. Any thoughts?
 
If I recall correctly, the rear canopy bow, which is horizontal, could be bent down a bit. This would lower the rear of the canopy, there by shortening the skirt at the back.
This might not work for everyone. My wife wants to sit as high as possible back there. (as she tries to talk her way into the front seat) :rolleyes:
 
Pull pin and lift off

With the canopy open I can reach up under the skirt and remove the pin attaching the frame to the delrin slider and lift the canopy off. No modifications required.
 
Skyflyer said:
With the canopy open I can reach up under the skirt and remove the pin attaching the frame to the delrin slider and lift the canopy off. No modifications required.
Click to expand...

I actually removed the canopy recently and did something similar to this. I climbed in the back seat and faced aft, pulled the canopy partially closed over my head, and reached back and removed the cotter pin and pin through the slider block and you can just lift the canopy straight up and off.
 
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