RV7 Canopy Rear Skirts

Aftrer fitting the frame to the canopy and match drilling the side skirts and canopy to the frame, I am having real problesms fitting the rear canopy skirts. The canopy perspex 'tips up' at the rear and forces the aluminium skirt at least 1/4 inch off the fuselage, whatever I seem to do! Has anyone else had this problem? I am considering molding a fibreglass rear skirt, has any one any experience of this, any advice would be gratefully received as I have no idea how to start and make sure I dont create an over thick ragged skirt that doesn't look to thick against the rest of the canopy and in particular where it joins the persex and the aluminium side skirts

Many Thanks

Mark castle-Smith

Clarification Needed

I assume the canopy is similar to mine. Is Persex what you call the clear portion of the canopy assembly? Is the canopy a tip up or a slider? It sounds like you have a convex curve at the edge of the "plastic" where it is cut out of the big bubble for the final size - is that correct? If that is the problem and when you clecoe you skirts in place forward of the "ridge" it pivots the trailing edge up, you probably just need to trim the ridge off. It is really hard to get specific without knowing the situation better.

Rear Skirt

Mark
I had the same issue with my canopy. After the second attempt with aluminum skirts I decided to go the fiberglass route. I have a few pictures on my web site but it is limited. Basicly I just blocked off the gap between the canopy and the skin and then did the fiberglass layups right in place over the canopy. I had the canopy protected so that the fiberglass would not syick to the glass and had the aluminum skin waxed, that way I could remove everything after it cured. I believe I did 3 layups of cloth, removed it, trimed it to size and then used pulled rivets to hold it in place. Then filled over the rivets and finished like any other fiberglass, lots of filling and sanding. I did grind down some of the edge on the plexi where it turns up in the back so that it would lay flat. I am sure I have more pictures if you need them and would be happy to e-mail them to you if you need them.

Pete DeCraene
http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~decraene/index.htm

Rear Canopy Skirt - Slider.

I fought that battle and my escapades are documented beginning on my page 47 in the Finishing Kit section of my web site. I drilled a second set of holes and cut off the forward edge of the skirts in the process.

http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a047.htm

When you finish reading page 49, follow the link to Tugwell Page 2 for more details of how I got my skirt to fit.

http://www.n2prise.org/Tugwell2.htm#SkirtMod

I hope my experience will help in your quest for a good LIE. (Sorry about the golfing term, but it seemed appropriate here.)

Jerry K. Thorne
RV-9A N2PZ
www.n2prise.org