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Help with Canopy skirt.

J

jay.pearlman

Well Known Member
I am installing the rear skirt on a sliding canopy. From the drawings, it is hard to tell what the overlap of the skirt is on the rear upper skin. I seem to have a room for a couple of inches overlap. What have others done?
 
I just did this

I just finished my rear skirt. I made it of fiberglass, but patterned the width from the aluminum included in the kit. I cut one of the two outlined halves to form a "template", which I used to mark on the rear of the canopy and the fuse with tape.

I positioned the template so that I would have enough overlap aft to adequately cover the gaps around the slider track. This gave me about a two inch overlap on the rear of the canopy, but then, I probably trimmed the canopy a little closer to the rear of the canopy frame than some. If memory serves (I'm not at the hangar currently) the width of the skirt at the apex is about 5.5 inches, widening to about 6.5 at the side skirt intersection.
 
Not for sure, I don't think a measurement will work for the slight variences in airframes. I just trimmed just outside of the lines on the skirts and tried to prebend/twist the skirts to the fuse. Once it was close I drilled to the canopy frame with a helper holding and twisting the skirt as in the plans.

Once it was drilled to the frame I evened up the foward edge against the plexi an even distance from the clecos.

For the rear skirt against the fuse I filed/fitted the rear of the skirt as I closed the canopy a little at a time (skirt clecoed to canopy frame) and the skirt contacted the fuse, showing me where to file. I used the rivets on the aft deck stiffeners to help keep it concentric.

I did use a metal shrinker to close the last 1/8 inch gap at the lower corners, but was concerned about it staying tight. I made some reinforcement brackets off the canopy frame that work very well and probably would have worked without the metal shrinker. I have troubles with photos and could text one if it would help.

Thanks,
Andy
 
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The length of my skirt

So two inches it will be. I tried it today and may have left an extra half inch in hindsight, but two inches seems fine. The hard part seems to be the magic twist near the bottom. That is tomorrow's job.
Probably going to involve a little shrinking.
Thanks everyone for the help.
 
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