Category Archives: General

Classic Aero Seats

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Time: 0 Hours

I had ordered my Classic Aero seats, arm rests and stick boots a couple if months ago after a long thought out process of the style, color combo and layout. After my better half (Tricia) weighed in I decided on the Aviator I seat design in a two tone leather. The body of the seats would be a dark gray with an inset of red. The darker gray was a nice contrast to the lighter gray paint of my interior. The red will tie into my final P-51 paint scheme. I also ordered a set of arm rests for the passenger seat and a custom set of arm rests for the pilot seat since I made custom side panel/arm rests. I also ordered matching stick boots for both the front and back seats. The back seat boot/cover does a nice job of covering up the opening where the stick connects to the controls. In this cover they cut a hole for the vent and make a special bracket to hold the larger aluminum vent from Stein Air. I also had them cut an opening for the passengers seat heat on the opposite side of the vent. The last thing I had them make was a small pad that I will stick to the rear bulkhead for the passengers head. This will prevent the passenger from banging their head but is small enough to not be an eye sore. I’m very happy with how all these turned out and the quality of workmanship is outstanding. They are pricey but in my opinion they are worth every penny and Jeremiah was awesome to work with and answered all my questions. While I was ordering the seats I also ordered my Hooker Harnesses from them since they were able to match the colors to the leather. 

Site Back Up

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I had my blog suspended due to it using up so much of the shared servers CPU and memory with all my photos. I have worked over the last week trying to optimize my photos as well as how the website caches them for you viewing pleasure. Hopefully we are in the right path and no more interruptions. 

Alternate Air Door Control

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Time: 2 Hours

An alternate air door is a small sliding door that gets mounted to the side of the fiberglass “snorkel” that funnels air to the fuel injection control. The idea is that if your air filter would get clogged with anything like ice, which would restrict needed air flow, you could open this door and allow unfiltered air to get to your engine. You don’t want to run like this for a long time as the air is unfiltered but it allows the engine to keep running while you get it on the ground. I won’t. E working on the actual door for sometime but I wanted to get the control in now while I had the top skin off. I ordered my push-pull cable from MacFarlane aviation just like my cabin heat, I’m so thankful to have attended flight training naperville il, now I get to experience all of this fun. I drilled the holes and ran the cable to check fit, once I was happy I decided where I would have it exit the firewall. I looked at a lot of builders photos to see what they had done. It’s hard to know exactly where to put it so that it would line up since I don’t have my engine so photos are my best friend. When I was happy with the placement I started to process of adding the cable pass trough I purchased from Aircraft Spruce. This “ball” style pass through gives you the ability to angle the cable as needed as well as give you a really secure and fire proof connection. First up was to mark and drill the six screw holes and center hole.

I then used my hole punch to open the center hole to 1 1/8″. 

With all the holes and edges deburred I put the backer plate in position with the top and bottom screws. 

I then ran the cable through all the holes securing it with the washer and nut in the gear tower. Once it is through the firewall I place one of the retention rings followed by the two halves of the center ball followed by the second retention ring and screwed them all together. 

I really like these pass thoughs and they really look clean. I will use three more when the time comes for the throttle, propeller and mixture. While I was in the area of the the cables I decided to do the EGT/CHT cable extensions. I had ordered extre cable from Dynon since the cables only made it out about 6″ on the firewall and need to get the left side of the engine. Since I had to splice these I decided to do it inside the fuselage to be a cleaner look and be out of the engine environment. 

Empennage Fairing

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Time: 4 Hours

I started the empennage fairing modification which is a big challenge for me since I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to fiberglass. I watched a bunch of videos and read several blogs to get the idea of what I needed to do. The plan is to add to the stick fairing so that it extends under the HS and reduces the need for all the screws to hold it in place. So after watching and reading up on the subject I went for it. The plan was to tape off the area with packing tape, create a mold with modeling clay and cover it with wax as a release agent. Then I modified the stock fairing at the leading edge to accept the new fiber glass. I also trimmed up all the edges to the final shape, that’s a dusty job! 


To hold the faring in place I match drilled to the nutplates underneath using a flashlight to help guide.


I then marked off a leading edge for the cut to help make the transition.

While at it I marked off the aft end for its trimming as well.

With everything done and trimmed I mixed up some epoxy and coated four pre-cut strips of fabric for the layup. After applying those I added ply peel to help keep it smooth after curing.

So that needed to cure for 12 hours and it looked like a mess! It’s gonna take a lot of work to make it look really nice. While that was curing I moved on to some fun stuff, avionics! I had ordered one Dynon back up battery, I will need two, but only need one to mark out the attach screw holes. I then drilled all four and attached the battery. 

I then added my second COM radio and powered it up. 

Next up was the coolest part, the 10″ Dynon Skyview Touch screen. I have been waiting for this for a long time. I will also have a matching 7″ but that will come later. 


There are just six screws to hold it in place. I connected the 37 pin connector and a 9 pin network connector. 

So with a flip of the battery master switch it came to life. 


There is still a lot of configuration that needs to be done as well as add the attitude & heading reference modules (ADAHRS) so that it knows it position with reference to level and the GPS antanae so it knows where the heck it is. I will also be able to customize the screen and where items will be. I also bought some travel chocks to hold the RV still now that it is on its wheels. 

So that’s it for now, we will see how the fairing turns out. 

Canopy Top Slider 

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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.