Great pictures and educational, bonus

Curious about the rivets you put in on the upper door sill. I've never seen them installed there. Those holes are usually used for the swing up door hinges. But if you have a one piece door, I like the idea of the rivets there to hold the fabric.

As a Citabria owner I get more fascinated by this thread with every post. Along with the pictures posted here and me studying my own plane over the past few years I like seeing all the details come together.

I have never understood why they fabric cover the wing roots. That and those cheesy sheet metal covers make for a messy "armpit" joint It seems like some kind of sheet metal/fiberglass/vacuum formed plastic would be easier and more elegant. Certainly less of a yard sale when you have the fuse/switch box or the speaker off for repairs/upgrades.

Hi folks, sorry I've been unable to respond. My tech job has me slammed and I'll circle back and reply to each post this weekend.

It's the end of our fiscal quarter and I'm spending 12+ hours a day fighting fires (figuratively of course).

I'm flaking in the post replies, but I beg for forgiveness...I don't recommend a full time non aviation job. It really gets in the way of stuff that matters!

More progress for your review...

Apology accepted for a first time offence

[emoji16] thanks!

What direction are you heading for instrumentation, tradition steam or some of that new fangled magenta kit.

Mapleflt wrote:What direction are you heading for instrumentation, tradition steam or some of that new fangled magenta kit.

It's got steam in there now but we might have a mix of both. We'll see.

Karmutzen wrote:No wonder my belly fabric is drumming itself to death, I'm missing all those cross braces and rivets. Winter project. Now I've got to go back and look at your pre-fabric pictures. Rivets just the AD42BS into an aluminum cross-rib? Noticed the tapes are the narrow 3/8 or 1/2" (can't tell). Factory uses Boeing cargo hold friction tape, Polyken 296FR, but I still have some of the polyfibre stuff around.

aca tape2.jpg

aca tape.jpg

I've seen some with and without rivets on the belly. I bet ACA cut them in at some point but I'd have to look at documentation.

A1Skinner wrote:Curious about the rivets you put in on the upper door sill. I've never seen them installed there. Those holes are usually used for the swing up door hinges. But if you have a one piece door, I like the idea of the rivets there to hold the fabric.

The holes on both side had rivets from the factory so we reinstalled them after removal. Every little bit helps!

aftCG wrote:As a Citabria owner I get more fascinated by this thread with every post. Along with the pictures posted here and me studying my own plane over the past few years I like seeing all the details come together.

I have never understood why they fabric cover the wing roots. That and those cheesy sheet metal covers make for a messy "armpit" joint It seems like some kind of sheet metal/fiberglass/vacuum formed plastic would be easier and more elegant. Certainly less of a yard sale when you have the fuse/switch box or the speaker off for repairs/upgrades.

We were dreaming up some carbon fiber interior pieces but going to go with factory ACA replacements instead.

Aryana, your treading on thin ice again in on the mandatory progress reporting requirements

Hey man it's way past time for an "ops normal" report and progress update

Very nice tracking of your progress, just starting on airframe and the pictures are helping a lot keep it up.

Terrific pictures and report. Question, did you install the rear floorboard (one piece) before you put the fabric on? I can’t really tell from your pictures. I want to replace the rear most floorboard in my Scout without recovering the fuselage. There have been several posts that say the rear floorboard won’t go in without cutting it in 2 pieces with the fabric on.

Hi folks, just checking in after a long absence here.

The plane hasn't had any progress since my last post. Sorry I haven't checked in but I've been slammed with other projects, primarily maintaining my own forum with 8k+ members which needed a lot of TLC over the past few months.

So here's a list of excuses via pictures to get everyone up to speed on why I haven't touched the 7ECA. The plan is to get back on it after Spring

Airglas aft extended baggage finally installed in my 170B



Eagle II always needs some TLC



100 hour inspection on my 170B



Finally got a micro lathe and mill set up for the 27% 170B project



This gorgeous 2006 Citabria came and went - helped it find a new caretaker



Sold my tug



Replaced the entire steering rack and pump in my 35 year old van



Set up an FAA approved simulator in one of our hangars and going to use this and our 172M to finally finish up my instrument rating that I've been working on for decades. [emoji2359]



And lastly, I got called up with the option to move into the most desirable hangar on our field (which has an epic view of the runways) so I have a massive hangar move ahead of me.

I haven't seen the doors open on this hangar in the entire 30 years I've been romping around this airport. A 1955 Bonanza on flats inside.

Like your Elite sim. Years ago we were desperate to provide economic IFR training to our worldwide helicopter operations and national pilots. I found an ad for Elite in Plane and Pilot, after a hairy drive from Milan to Zurich to visit with Rene Huddlestone at Elite, we ended up buying 5. At the time sims were airline world, heavy because of the collimated displays, needed hydraulics etc. Elite proved high value. Rene told me that a local go-kart manufacturer was building the mechanical controls for the box.

Oh dear god, you have a Vanagon as well! You can have an airplane or the Van, but not both, not enough hours in a week. Mine constantly needed something. It did lead to some interesting conversations I thought I would never have with my wife. Like; "Is this as fast as it will go?" "Go ahead and buy the bigger engine!" "Replace every damm sensor in it!" She pioneered AAA Platinum + membership due to it.

It had such amusing nicknames like, display only model, moving guardrail, hanger elf. I finally sold it, made an obscene amount of money on it and the new owner is inexplicably overjoyed with it (we still keep in touch). Now I have time for the aircraft and a large selection of precision hammers with nothing to use them on anymore. German engineering, no wonder they lost the war. Fahrvergnügen, translates to: "buy more parts."

As kids we spent many hours on the road in the family Westfalia, politely referred to as The Hurtling Turtle

Karmutzen wrote:Like your Elite sim. Years ago we were desperate to provide economic IFR training to our worldwide helicopter operations and national pilots. I found an ad for Elite in Plane and Pilot, after a hairy drive from Milan to Zurich to visit with Rene Huddlestone at Elite, we ended up buying 5. At the time sims were airline world, heavy because of the collimated displays, needed hydraulics etc. Elite proved high value. Rene told me that a local go-kart manufacturer was building the mechanical controls for the box.

I'm very impressed with the realism of the Elite sim. It's nearly as fun as the real thing! [emoji1360]

dogpilot wrote:Oh dear god, you have a Vanagon as well! You can have an airplane or the Van, but not both, not enough hours in a week. Mine constantly needed something. It did lead to some interesting conversations I thought I would never have with my wife. Like; "Is this as fast as it will go?" "Go ahead and buy the bigger engine!" "Replace every damm sensor in it!" She pioneered AAA Platinum + membership due to it.

It had such amusing nicknames like, display only model, moving guardrail, hanger elf. I finally sold it, made an obscene amount of money on it and the new owner is inexplicably overjoyed with it (we still keep in touch). Now I have time for the aircraft and a large selection of precision hammers with nothing to use them on anymore. German engineering, no wonder they lost the war. Fahrvergnügen, translates to: "buy more parts."

Great looking Westy. [emoji1360]

It's really evident you know Vanagon's very well! This one is nicknamed "Klaus" and has been in the family for 30 years. I has definitely broken out on the road, but never badly. It has never left us stranded or needed a tow truck. Now that I said that, I'm sure I'm screwed.

Electronic fuel injection (Digifant) with no OBD means you have to actually think about which sensor might be on the fritz and think through some interesting thought experiments.

Overall, it's been great for more than 200k miles, but I've gotten to know literally every single inch of the vehicle doing all the maintenance myself.

Money and time put for sure.

Mapleflt wrote:As kids we spent many hours on the road in the family Westfalia, politely referred to as The Hurtling Turtle

Nice! That's a pretty cool name for a Westy.

Goodyear wrote:Terrific pictures and report. Question, did you install the rear floorboard (one piece) before you put the fabric on? I can’t really tell from your pictures. I want to replace the rear most floorboard in my Scout without recovering the fuselage. There have been several posts that say the rear floorboard won’t go in without cutting it in 2 pieces with the fabric on.

You won't be able to remove and replace the floorboard furthest aft with the covering in place unless it's cut in two.