This week I got an email from Classic Aero saying that they are finishing up with my interior, which means they need one last measurement to finish up the carpet. The front carpet has a heel pad sewn on, and because the rudder pedals can be placed in a number of different positions to fit pilot size, they ask for a measurement of where your heel falls relative to the firewall. The problem is in order to figure that out, the rudder itself needs to be hooked up with the control cables, and some sort of a seat back has to be in place to figure out what position you'll be seated in. I had already gutted virtually everything in the fuselage in preparation for painting, so once again I hauled the vertical stab and rudder back to the garage, routed the control cables, clamped the seat back brace in position, and put the standard Van's seat back in (which I won't be using, but didn't figure that out until after I had built it). The seat back can attach to one of three hinges at the base, which moves it fore and aft probably 4" or so. Just as a stab in the dark, I put it in the middle position. I attached the rudder cables to the pedals, piled a bunch of towels onto the seat bottom and back in an attempt to estimate seat cushion thickness, and climbed in. With the rudder assembly bolted in the aft position (the whole assembly can slide forward a couple of inches for tall pilots) that seat position ended up being about right. It's really hard to say since the seats themselves may be a little different than my pile of pillows, but I think it'll probably be good. I did get a chance to try out the different seat back positions the Almost 14 modification allows. With the hinged support on the seat back hooked into the brace, you set up quite vertically, which apparently is the normal stock position. Dropping that support down so the seat back just rests directly on the horizontal brace makes for a much more reclined position. It was a lot of work to do that modification, but I think it's going to be well worth it to have the ability to change positions a little on long flights.
