Fuselage tapes

We finished installing the last of the tapes on the fuselage.  This included the long tapes along the bottom edges of  the right and left sides, a couple of smaller tapes near the footwell, a horizontal tape along the bottom edge of the firewall, and the tape along the back of the vertical stabilizer.  Hours: 10.5

Tapes along bottom edge, and front of footwell added

Taping completed on sides of fuselage

Tape added along back edge of vert. stabilizer

Vert stabilizer with all finishing tapes installed

More Fuselage Tapes

We continued our work on the finishing tapes for the fuselage.  We installed a tape above the left window, several tapes around both door openings, and also applied 3" tapes around the top and front of the vertical stabilizer.  This included a small section of special bias tape which conforms nicely to the front curve of the vertical stabilizer.  We actually ran out of 3" tape during part of this job, but had some extra 4" tape, so we trimmed an inch off with pinking shears to make our own 3" tape.  Lastly, we applied glue for the two long tapes at the bottom edge of the fuselage, but didn't install those tapes yet.  Hours: 7.5

Taping around this window is complete

Tapes around door opening installed

Taping on top & front of vert. stab, includes piece of bias tape

Fuselage Finishing Tapes

We've been spending a lot of time doing various finishing tapes around the fuselage  We applied glue and installed the fabric finishing tape on the following areas

• Left and Right Side Stringers
• Around the Baggage door
• The Top Stringer that goes from the Turtledeck to the Vertical Stabilizer
• Along the back edge of the Turtledeck opening
• The bottom stringer on the bottom of the fuselage
• Various small tapes on the bottom of the fuselage near the empennage 
• Top longerons
• Front bottom of fuselage

Hours: 12.5

Tapes applied around Baggage Door

Tapes applied top Longeron and Side Stringer

Tape applied to the bottom Stringer

Tapes added to bottom Empennage area

Fuselage fabric and antenna ground planes

We made some more good progress this past week.  Fabric doilies were installed over the plastic rudder cable fairings, and three lower finishing tapes were applied to the lower side of the tail.

Tail (upside down) with add'l tapes and a rudder cable fairing doily

Two 8"x8" thin aluminum sheets were installed at the bottom of the fuselage.  These are ground reference planes for two antennas (transponder and ADS-B) that will be installed at a later time. 

Aluminum sheet installed for transponder antenna

Bottom side, large protective doily over antenna ground plane

3 finishing tapes were installed around the landing gear opening, and 5 more short tapes were applied under the footwell area.

Front fuselage (upside down) with tapes applied under footwell area

Finishing tapes around landing gear pass-thru tunnel (fuselage still upside-down)

Lastly, 18 finishing tapes (1" width) were installed along both sides of the fuselage, in the vicinity of the door openings.   Hours: 12

Zig-zag pattern of the finishing tapes installed near the door openings