Chapter 13 - Nose Section

The nose section was built by Michael per plans.  The Featherlight nose cap was used, as well as an acrylic landing light cover that Michael heated in the oven and hand formed to the nose.

So, I came along and starting ripping things apart.  The nose gear was built per plans with the manual gear.  I figured I wasn't getting any younger, and lifting the nose by hand was going to get old fast.  So, I installed the EZ-Nose Lift by Jack Wilhelmson.

It was relatively easy to retrofit the system, following Jack's directions.

  The next thing was to add some gear doors to clean up the bottom of the plane when the gear was retracted.  This is a pretty standard modification.  The screen door spring serves to open the doors when the gear is put down, and it hooks on the strut when the gear is pulled up.

Another project was a modification of a modification that Michael made.  He built in a fog lamp from a car for the taxi/landing light.  I liked the look of the nose this way, and the acrylic cover was great.  The lights, however, were not that bright, and got pretty hot.  I bought some Baja Designs S2 LED lights.  One is a spot for the landing light, and one is a flood for the taxi light.  These lights are INCREDIBLY bright.  I could not take a picture with them on, as it simply saturates my digital camera.  

Another modification was to build a nice heated pitot tube.  Here I cheated and copied a design from James Redmon used on his Berkut.  It was a simple thing to design up, machine the parts, and assemble it.  

Another time hole I fell into was the front compartment hatch.  Most folks follow the plans, put some screws or 1/4 turn fasteners, and call it a day.  Michael had something like 12 or 16 screws holding it in place.  This seemed like a real PITA, so I did something better.  I cheated and bought the J hinges from the Cozy Girls.

 Then I machined the hinge blocks for the ends, and bought detent pins with lanyards from McMaster Carr.  

Appropriate cutouts were made in the nose for the hinge blocks.  I glassed this in, then pushed the hing block in using flox, then glassed over the top of that.  The whole thing was closed while this set up so the door would fit perfectly flush.  When that was done I turned my attention to the release latch.  Jon Dembs had a sweet latch on his Cozy, so I tried my best to replicate that.  I machined up a curved latch with a hole in it for the door.  Then I designed in SolidWorks and machined up a latch pin assembly.  It looks like this:

That was sunk into the nose at the top of the door.  With the pin set in place, I floxed this in with a weight on the door, so it all fit nice and tight.  The cable runs to a Mercedes hood latch which can be reached in the pilot footwell, directly under the PFD/MFD screens.  You simply reach under, pop the hood, and pull the hood open.  It is really nice, and I give all the credit to Jon Dembs for that idea.