Time: 4 Hours
The canopy frame will slide forward/backward on three slider rail. On on the top aft skin and two on either side of the cockpit running from the bulkhead where the passenger sits to the windscreen rollbar. I started on the aft top slider first per the plans. The slider will be two peices riveted together to make a lip for a part on the canopy frame it to slide onto. These two parts will have a bend in them at the forward and to drop into a receptacle. As a canopy slides forward the aft end will drop into this receptacle lowering the canopy onto the skin, and when you open the canopy the aft and will slide up and after on the rail lifting the canopy up and clear of the skin. First up is to match the angle of the receptacle on the lower part of the slider.
Van’s lays out all the measurements for the rivets in the screws that will go lengthwise on this slider. There is a total of nine screws that will be used to hold the slider onto the top skin. There was a lot of drilling, deburring and countersinking for these two parts. You will notice that I had to countersink both the top and bottom of the slider. That’s because the bottom will sit flush on the top skin and the rivet heads could not protrude past flush. So when I squeeze the rivets the shop head with squeezed into the bottom countersink keeping it completely flush.
Once I had the slider completed I did some measurements on the top skin from for bulkhead to the after located to establish centerline. I’ve been matched up the centerline of the slider to those lines I drew on the top skin and taped the slider firmly into position.
I then used the screw holes in the slider to match drill the top skin placing a screw, washer and nut in as I drilled which meant climbing back into that tailcone!
From this point you would normally start working on the next two slider rails, unfortunately the attachment hardware for the canopy which is needed to align these two rails is back ordered by Van’s. So I will postpone the rest of the steps and move onto another task.
