Tue 31 January 2006 |
| Again first thing, more fibreglass work, this time the upper cowl, so masked the lower cowl with masking and electrical tape. | 
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| Plastered the upper cowl with micro-balloons and the removed the excess with the tape. | 
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| With the left over micro I painted the clay mold and then laid up some 2oz / 6oz cloth. Only about 4 layers but should get the basic shape / prove the principle. | 
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| Back to more sanding on the forward canopy - oh yah! Now nearly 2/3rd of the upper (plexi) edge done. | 
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| With warm temps early afternoon, the micro-balloons was setting already, it is a fine line between being still soft enough to be able to break the two halves apart (a single large cowl isn't a good look) and set enough to not deform. | 
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| The glass experiment was also set so I extracted it from the clay forma. | 
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| After some trimming an initial fit looks encouraging, only concept at this point but a step in the right direction. I think probably the cowl side needs to be sorted first, then probably a wooden forma for the glass. I also ordered some more composite materials today - getting low.... | 
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| The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at / working out panel layout. This is something that has been mulled over for a couple of years, but with the Stein ordered becoming imminent some decisions on layout need to be made. A number of options on side by side vs over under for the GRT screens were considered, and I'm settling slowly on this layout. The principle being the primary MFD plus the electric A/H and OBS CDI being in one vertical group and the backup Airspeed and Altimeter being in the second stack. The radio / nav components are further to the right, although I may bring them more central if possible. | 
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| All this is obviously up for modification when we get the actual hardware ;-) | 
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