[Brantel]

Dispite the fact that the front half of my bubble was clamped in about 100 places to the rear rollbar when drilling, after installing it to the frame, the struts installed, weatherstrip at the side rails, and installing the rear latch fingers as tight as I can get them and still be able to open the latch, (talk about run-on sentence) my bubble does not sit down tight on the rear rollbar when latched. it has at least an 1/8" gap at places. If I remove the weather strip it is about half that but I need a weatherstrip!

This is going to cause it to sit higher than the rear glass unless I build up the rear glass landing to the level of this front bubble. I thought about just raising the rollbar with a couple shims on both sides but my four screw holes from the aft top skin won't allow this without replacing the mounting angles that are already drilled and countersunk.

Next idea is to us a targa strip which I was most likely going to do anyway. Question is will this mask this problem or not?

Next question on the targa... Those that have extended it down over the ears of the aft top skin, how has this worked out for you and have you had any problems with breaking this off if you come down crooked or?? I plan on installing guide blocks from UHMW board like Jeff's.

If there are no problems with this, how did you do it to get it to look nice?

 

[fstringham7a]

RE:FG Targa

Brian

As I have mentioned I do not have real world experience with the targa as my plane is still ground bound....paint and the last 1000 details.....With that said early in the build I decided to do the Targa to cover the gap between the forward and aft canopy.....plus...make up for any cosmetic problems.

I did the targa last month and I am happy with the results. Still need a bit of finish work before I paint.

My method was to apply the Targa to the front canopy. Used duct tape on the aft canopy as peel ply. The FG for the Targa is six layer. I cut each layer with less width so there would be a feathering effect on the forward edge.
It also adds a bit of strength to the canopy structure.

Here is a close up of my results........



Hope this helps

Frank @ 1L8 ...RV7A.... paint prep...............

 

[boom3]

Can't help yet cause I'm not quite there.

You seem very meticulous and do awesome work. Any hindsight on what you would or could have possibly done differently.

My big cut could happen this weekend.

Sometimes reading these forums is like reading NTSB reports before you go flying.

 

[Brantel]

Man Jeff I wish I could tell you.... I really have no idea what I could do different to get this thing nailed down before I committed to anything.

Not sure if mine is any different than everyone elses other than I am obsessing over the issues more hoping there is a magic fix for all of these.

I had about 10 clamps holding the front bubble to the roll bar when drilling. Duct tape all around etc. When fabbing up the frame, I had a strap holding the canopy skin in perfect position while drilling the center splice and hinges. I even put several layers of duct tape over the center of the subpanel to ensure that the canopy skin did not end up too low at that area but it did anyway.

My frame simply does not match the subpanel ribs. I think this is a problem with all of them. There is not much you can do about it because the heavy u shaped part in the front would be hard to impossible to bend.

If I had to make a call on what to do different, I would not drill the canopy skin to the frame before fitting the frame and skin to the airplane like they tell you to. Even though most of these holes are prepunched, I think more flexibility could be had if you drill these after the fact.

I would also do whatever I had to to get the canopy frame narrower than the fuse up at the front. By default the stock holes in the canopy skin force this (the frame) out to wider than the fuse in that area.

Everyone seems to have the air scoop syndrome at 10 and 2 o'clock. Most of this can be overcome by shims under the front skin or if your lucky enough to have access to a shrinker, you can do that.

 

[boom3]

Thanks Brian.

I hear ya, it seems many of these things happen regardless how perfect things are done.

Just think though, it won't be too long and we'll all be sitting lawn chairs drinking a cold one next to our pride and joy. I'd do 5 canopies if needed for that day to come. Well maybe 3.

 

[Greg Arehart]

Brian,

Not sure if it helps, but I just cut a couple pieces of .032 Al and made a Targa out of that. Depending on how you cut them, you could probably compensate a bit for the mismatch. At least it was easy to cut the Al. I have not put this back on the airframe as yet, because I am just finishing up the fiberglas work on the front of the canopy. Will let you know how it fits.

FWIW, I also have the scoop effect at 10/2 oclock, and it got worse with putting the canopy on and off and riveting stuff together. I have not yet riveted down the front deck, but suspect it will only make things worse unless I put some shims in there. Worst case, I guess I will just build up the deck a bit with some micro and epoxy....

greg