Cup Holders and Rudder Gust Lock

We've been trying to think of a way to have cup holders in the cockpit and now we have four different locations for mounting cup holders.  We purchased some belt cup holders from Amazon and have two pieces of "velcro".  We sewed mating pieces of Velcro into the fabric around the control sticks in four locations to allow us to move the holders around.  Well, after a short flight they worked out wonderfully and we're very happy with the outcome.

Velcro added to carpet

Cup Holder installed

A second location installation

Michael took a rudder gust lock design by Trent Palmer for his Kitfox and modified it to work for our Highlander.  The design was 3D printed and seems to work great.

Gust Lock installed on Rudder Pedals

Move Crossover Valve Control Location

 After using the crossover valve cut-off control for a few months, we found it difficult to reach and with length and routing, the friction in push-pull control was a little too excessive.  We moved the control from the floor area  near the main fuel cut-off to above the pilots head and to his left.  This location dramatically cut down on the bowden cable length and much easier to use in the process.  A WIN-WIN situation.

Fuel Crossflow cut-off valve label

New location

Baggage area improvements

We made some modifications to the baggage area to make it more usable.  We cut some 2" thick (pink) foam to build up the baggage area on both sides of the center push-pull tube cover.  This was done to make the baggage floor flat without a big bump in the middle.  We sprayed the pink foam with gray paint, and also covered the top with gray fabric that was left-over from our interior finishing kit.  Contact cement was used to glue the fabric to the top of the foam.

2" foam covered with fabric

Baggage floor before foam added

Baggage floor after foam added

Next, we added a small cargo net to the rear baggage floor, anchored to 4 tie down.  We also fabricated a second net for the cargo area directly behind the seats.  This allows us to quickly drop a flight bag behind the seats without worrying that it will move around.  We fabricated this ourselves from from some polyester black mesh fabric we got off of Amazon.  It was cut to size, and double-fold bias tape was sewn along all sides.  Paracord was run through the front and back edges to allow for attachment, and the ends were simply tied to a few of the fuselage tubes.

Rear baggage compartment with cargo net

Front cargo bay with netting material