[Speedy]

I'm doing the canopy phase of my RV-8A and as I removed the slider canopy from the airplane today, I noticed that the trailing edge almost touched the vertical stabilizer before the Delrin block cleared the fuselage slider - and that is without the skirt on it!
For those with flying aircraft, how do you remove the canopy? Do you have to remove the fuselage slider to remove the canopy? I can't see another way to do it.
With the skirt on, my canopy will not slide all the way back before the skirt touches the VS fairing. I'm not talking about removing the canopy, just opening it and sliding it to the rear stop. Is everyone's like that?
If so, what do you do to solve the problem?

Stan Sutterfield
Daytona Beach, FL
www.rv-8a.net

 

[mannanj]

Canopy

I'm doing the canopy phase of my RV-8A and as I removed the slider canopy from the airplane today, I noticed that the trailing edge almost touched the vertical stabilizer before the Delrin block cleared the fuselage slider - and that is without the skirt on it!
For those with flying aircraft, how do you remove the canopy? Do you have to remove the fuselage slider to remove the canopy? I can't see another way to do it.
With the skirt on, my canopy will not slide all the way back before the skirt touches the VS fairing. I'm not talking about removing the canopy, just opening it and sliding it to the rear stop. Is everyone's like that?
If so, what do you do to solve the problem?

Stan Sutterfield
Daytona Beach, FL
www.rv-8a.net

I cut notches on either side of the rear canopy "T" rail just wide enough for the delrin block to lift up through. Cut the notches just aft of the position where the block comes to rest when the the forward rollers hit the aft stop.

 

[Ironflight]

"It's Art!"

Nowhere does this mean more than on the aft part of the canopy skirt - there is a lot of room for creative shaping, and since it is fiberglass, not hard to do. Since the interference with the Empennage fairing is only on the order of an inch or so, you can shorten up the skirt by that much to allow clearance. In my case, I didn't need more than a half inch of additional clearance, so I cut the center slot with little "v's" so that it nests into the empennage fairing just before it comes off.

The bottom line is that you are not stuck with the shape of the canopy skirt - if you need to shorten it an inch to get the canopy off, just do it, then reshape to please the eye.

Paul