Just for comparison, here is the left side of the canopy frame. This is just fine.
Here is the right side. You can see that there's a large gap - until you get to the canopy side skirt (painted gray), where it fits nicely.
Well. In our general excitement with getting the frame together yesterday, it seems that we did not really take the time to check and make sure that it fit correctly. Today we discovered a bit of a problem, here.
The forward canopy deck - where the front part of the canopy skin meets the fuselage - has a bit of a gap on the right side. On the left side, it seems to be fine. Strange. It's not a question of just pushing it down farther, because the side skirts are already where they need to be - the frame is just the wrong shape.
There are a couple things that could cause this, I guess: the shape of this can change slightly when it's being riveted, which could have happened. What's more likely is that I didn't check the gap when we were putting it all together. This is easier to do than it seems - the skin doesn't get pulled into the proper shape until it's actually riveted - clecos do not pull it in far enough to see what the gap is actually going to be like.
Here are some pictures, so you know what I'm talking about, here:
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Just for comparison, here is the left side of the canopy frame. This is just fine. |
Here is the right side. You can see that there's a large gap - until you get to the canopy side skirt (painted gray), where it fits nicely. |
Well. It's obvious this needs to be fixed, but this isn't a problem that I've heard of before, so there was a substantial amount of research done, here - checking websites and talking to David Edgemon. The planned course of action, here, is to drill out a bunch of that side of the frame, and see if we can shift some things around to get a better shape. It's sure not moving all riveted together, that is for sure.
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