Fuselage

When I ordered the fuselage kit I was still questioning if there would be enough room for adequate baggage, so I ordered the forward "Auxiliary Baggage Kit" - Plan 40. Its cheap. Since I plan to put the battery on the firewall freeing up the battery box for storage, and the rear storage area is bigger than I thought, I think there is enough room for my wife and I to travel with the things we want, without it. Looking at the kit however, it has become clear that it is very easy to install in such a way that it can be removed, leaving almost nothing behind and reinstalled for the occasional trip if I later decide I want it.

I thought it would be useful to put a few pictures here for any other prospective builder wrestling with the same issue.

If you are not familiar with it, it is a drop down draw, located between the firewall and the F-402 bulkhead.

In this first picture you can see the frame that 'contains' the draw. (All the unprimed bits.) It is attached by 4 nutplates to the cross angle on the firewall and by two nutplates attached to ears at each end of the F-402. I do not plan to go beyond the stage where it would be easy to install the nutplates and drop the assembly in at a later date if I ever decide I want to use it. It lifts out quite easily.

I notice you can also see that I have a removable panel. It makes it smaller but I see it as a real advantage. I will return to that sometime.


In the picture to the right the draw is sitting roughly underneath where it would fit with a hinge along the lower left side and some sort of retaining system to control how far it opens. (VANS are not very clear about their ideas for that.)








Read more »

Getting fresh air into an RV4 judging by some of the posts on Vansairforce appears quite challenging. I ordered the newish vent design from VANS. It costs $18 for two of them. I thought I would put a picture here because, hopefully, it is easier to understand than the poor picture on the VANS website.

In the first picture the hole and backing plate is installed together with the brackets that support the door. In the second the door is installed and the retaining / friction bolt dropped into place.



It will be a couple of years before I can give you a test report but it looks as though it should provide a hurricane if extended into the airstream.


Here it is max open at 45 deg. It closes flush, and I hope that continues in use. The friction can be adjusted once it is 100% installed.

In fact I never use it for long enough to start taxiing but then I fly out of a small private strip. Perhaps it would be more useful on a hot day in Arizona!