Category: Fuselage

The custom climate system includes a pair of outlets facing the windshield to demist in cold or humid conditions. This design diverts sharply from the kit design; the original Sling 4 kit had no window defroster at all, and when the TSi debuted it included an outlet in front...

Between work travel, vacation, and family visits, it’s been a few weeks since I was able to put in some time on the plane. One of my recent trips was to Oshkosh, but I missed the arrival of the new Sling High Wing; I’ll have to find an excuse...

Switching back to the fuselage for a bit; I’m ready to install the canopy, but before I do that, I need to install the interior side skins. My interior side skins didn’t come pre-drilled with holes for the rear-seat vents. Although I’ve heard they don’t work great, I still...

It’s a task I’ve put off for a long time, but I finally have a headliner attached to the canopy. I’m super pleased with the results. Although it wasn’t particularly difficult, it was manually-intensive, detailed work and took me most of the day Sunday to complete. First, I had...

I’ve completed the preliminary design of my automatic heater system. I’ve been concentrating on this for the last few weeks, which is why I haven’t posted much progress on the plane itself. This system recovers the heat from the engine’s cylinder head water cooling loop, forces air over a...

With everything attached for the front and main landing gear, and all of the fuselage riveted together, I decided it was time to drop the fuselage onto its wheels, and free up my workbench. I’ve been working on the fuselage for a little over a year now, so I...

I got a tip on my blog a few weeks ago from Daniel H. that I should have installed the static ports from inside the fuselage, not on the outside as I documented previously. The thought never occurred to me that they should be inside; the static port on...

On Sunday I finished riveting the port side fuselage skin, so now the fuselage is finally a structure that can carry some load. My next goal is to get the fuselage on wheels, so I started looking into the work required for the main landing gear assembly. The main...

I have friends over today for a summer BBQ so I decided to set up the plane for a little showcase. Some of the interior bits are installed, and I hastily attached the nose wheel (temporarily of course). I’m quite pleased with how the interior is looking, and very...

Over the weekend I started preparing the port-side outer fuselage skin for installation. There are a few steps to do before installing it: Lightly abrade the skin near rivet locations (for better paint adhesion under the countersunk rivet head) Dimple the forward rivet locations Attach NACA duct Roll edges...