In true military form – no plan survives the first contact of battle….
There was a number of changes that i was forced to perform, mostly from design flaws where I had to ‘guestimate’ dimensions.
Once I started building, some glaring issues were staring me in the face, others were more subtle or slightly hidden….
I will list these changes as I discover/address them:
initially cut too much of the height of the frame & had to put legs back on it.
reduce the height & depth of the pilot dash
add a pedal shelf to the PLT station, behind the CPG seat & create a nose cone to incorporate a CPG pedal shelf
The pit (without proper doors, is a bit difficult to get in & out of…. so i decided to the turn canopy in to hinged pop-tops
These welds were all done borrowing my neighbours little MiG welder & I was without gas, so it was a bit ugly…. don’t judge me guys.
I also had to move rear cross bar on aft section to middle of section & reduce the bench depth
changing the hinged pivot location of the CPG canopy, relocated due to lack of travel.
this took a fair bit of work, cutting elements previously welded, cleaning up the frame, then relocating hinges & rewelding the frame for strength
replaced the PLT gas struts with larger units (smaller one couldnt hold the weight of the canopy frame
had to replace the 90 degree brackets holding the gas struts, as they were all splitting when i did them up or after the struts had operated a few times…
so i made my own out of some scrap angle iron…. bomb proof now ya bitch