John Courte
Well Known Member
Tip for tip-up taildragger people about to stick the wings on:
Where the tip-up canopy meets the roll bar and the aft top skin, there lies in wait the ruination of a whole day.
I'm talking about that little corner of the skin where the two screws hold it on to the roll bar.
You'll have been used to working with this, your canopy closes, opens, and the canopy skirt overlaps it just like it's supposed to and everything seems fine.
But hooray for you, you're at the airport and you put the wings on for final assembly. Now you get to spend a lot of time clambering up in and out of the cockpit by stepping on the wings and by stepping down from them to dismount the airplane. This is the subject of today's rant.
You will need to be VERY VERY careful not to catch jeans, a belt, a shirt, a shoe, or even a donut-enhanced fold of skin on that little corner of aluminum or, to quote Walter in The Big Lebowski, you are entering a world of pain.
I like to think of myself as somewhat limber, being an 8-year student of Aircraft Tailcone Yoga, but after a few runs in and out of the cockpit for one forgotten tool or other, even the catlike ninja reflexes get dull, and the fatigue poisons degrade performance to that of a guy finishing a 12-hour shift on the docks and a 4 hour shift in the bar.
Yesterday, climbing out of the cockpit, my belt and t-shirt caught on that vile little piece of aluminum and bent it over like the corner of the saucy page of a cheap pulp novel.
The intersecting set of days and days I get to spend at the airport is vanishingly small. So when I create myself a two to three hour job fixing something that was caused by the collision of me being uncoordinated and a design that requires care on the part of those nearby, it makes me rethink my decision to go forward with an airplane instead of buying a sailboat and a couple of cases of beer.
Where the tip-up canopy meets the roll bar and the aft top skin, there lies in wait the ruination of a whole day.
I'm talking about that little corner of the skin where the two screws hold it on to the roll bar.
You'll have been used to working with this, your canopy closes, opens, and the canopy skirt overlaps it just like it's supposed to and everything seems fine.
But hooray for you, you're at the airport and you put the wings on for final assembly. Now you get to spend a lot of time clambering up in and out of the cockpit by stepping on the wings and by stepping down from them to dismount the airplane. This is the subject of today's rant.
You will need to be VERY VERY careful not to catch jeans, a belt, a shirt, a shoe, or even a donut-enhanced fold of skin on that little corner of aluminum or, to quote Walter in The Big Lebowski, you are entering a world of pain.
I like to think of myself as somewhat limber, being an 8-year student of Aircraft Tailcone Yoga, but after a few runs in and out of the cockpit for one forgotten tool or other, even the catlike ninja reflexes get dull, and the fatigue poisons degrade performance to that of a guy finishing a 12-hour shift on the docks and a 4 hour shift in the bar.
Yesterday, climbing out of the cockpit, my belt and t-shirt caught on that vile little piece of aluminum and bent it over like the corner of the saucy page of a cheap pulp novel.
The intersecting set of days and days I get to spend at the airport is vanishingly small. So when I create myself a two to three hour job fixing something that was caused by the collision of me being uncoordinated and a design that requires care on the part of those nearby, it makes me rethink my decision to go forward with an airplane instead of buying a sailboat and a couple of cases of beer.
