This past week I got the news that my interior was finished and ready to ship! I obviously don't need the interior until the last days of the build, but since I knew what I wanted to get, I didn't see any reason to wait another year only to watch the prices continue to go up. The quality of the craftsmanship is phenomenal! These guys really know what they're doing. I got their Aviator seats, which are completely custom made by Classic Aero vs their other offering which utilizes the Van's seat back that I built a while ago. The shape and foam of the seat is different than their other seats, and most input I've gotten over the years is that it's well worth the step up to these seats if long cross country traveling is in the plans. I also had them put heating pads in the back and bottom.
With the seats I also got a bunch of other stuff, like boots for the sticks.
This is the trim for the glare shield. I'll probably just paint the rest of the glare shield flat black, or maybe put some black cloth or even velcro fuzz on it. The trim not only looks nice, it's primarily to protect heads from the sharp edge of the glare shield in case of an accident. I've read way too many reports of head wounds from RV accidents.
I was going to save some money and do my own carpets, but by the time I would have bought carpet that was fire rated, the cost savings weren't all that significant. I had them make carpet for the front as well as baggage floor. The front carpet also has 1" thick foam underneath that sets in between the floor stiffeners and keeps everything level. Here's hoping I measured for the heel pads correctly.
The side panels are a little hard to visualize. It's not just a single panel that covers the side walls (since that would take up more valuable elbow room). Most of the panels velcro directly to the side skins. The way they overlap and route around all of the structure makes it look like one seamless panel in the end though. The big carpeted bumps are covers for the leg gear towers.
Now that I have painted parts, I can finally do some assembly. In order to do the big next step of the build, which is the canopy, I need to have the 705 bulkhead (the bulkhead at the seat back) and roll bar in place. There is a chicken or the egg problem though. The plans say to rivet on the top skin before riveting on the roll bar pieces, but then in the same breath they say to leave the top skin off for as long as possible to make all of the controls and wiring that goes in the tailcone easier to do. The only reason for riveting on the top skin first is because it allows you to more easily set the final 3 or 4 rivets at the forward tip of the skin (the line of rivets that attach to the longeron) where all of the structure for the roll bar is. Consensus among other builders is that it's better to work around the problem and put off riveting the skin.
It's cool to see structures finally going together for the last time. All of the bulkhead pieces went together fine, although of course since I have nice new paint on everything, I decided to let the rivet gun slip and take off a big chunk of it. The oops is hidden under the horizontal plate at least, so the next time I do some painting I will just do a little touch up and it should disappear.
Here's the reason Van's says riveting the skin on first is best. The big piece of angle that supports the bulkhead (this is looking up from underneath) sets right up against the longeron. It's hard to tell from the picture, but those last three rivets would not be able to be bucked if the angle is riveted on first. There's just no space to get any kind of a bucking bar on the rivets. The solution most builders use is to grind away portions of the angle at each rivet location. We'll see if I am actually able to get solid rivets set there or not. If not, the reliefs are big enough to put in pulled rivets.
Next up after all of the bulkhead support structure is the roll bar.
I bolted on the roll bar through the access hole in the back and also riveted on the upper channel that goes between the roll bar and the rear baggage bulkhead. That really solidifies the whole structure.
I screwed the front flap housing channel down to the floor. I was going to go ahead and put the entire flap housing and horizontal seat back brace in, but I discovered that with the seat back brace in place I would run into the same skin/longeron riveting issue. The brace sits right up against the longeron and would make bucking the skin rivets impossible. So I'll leave the horizontal brace out for now - benefit of that mod is that it just screws in place and is easy to install anytime.
The flap actuator weldment went back in next.
After dropping my bucking bar and denting the baggage floor, I wised up and laid down a bunch of padding. I figure each dent is just extra character, right?
