Interior Construction

Date: December 2002

Chapter: 19.0 Interior

Section: Fuselage

Section 19.1 Materials

, 2002 - Chapter 19.1.1 - "Headliner"

Not yet complete.

, 2002 - Chapter 19.1.2 - "Carpet"

Not yet complete.

December, 2002 - Chapter 19.1.3 - "Upholstery"

~~Currently taking bids on the seats~~, consequently we've begun work on the LCD display mounts for the seatbacks. We will be installing a DVD system for the rear seat passengers.

We ended up going with Oregon Aero for our upholstery, and picked some nice grays for the interior color. This theme will be matched throughout the cabin. They custom cut and shaped their multi-density temper foam into our preferred shape and performed custom stitch work for the leather pattern, and embossed the Velocity logo into the middle of the upper seatback. They do excellent work, and are extremely sensitive to meeting the customer's expectations. We highly recommend them.

Seat-Back LCD Display Cutout

Seatback with Display box in place

Display Box (formed around blue foam DVD template)

Display in place

Display in place with upholstery cover

Display in Place with Upholstery

Testing the seats

Embossed Logo

Seat Profile

Seats Paired Up - Note the Screen in Seatback of Front Seat

Still Playing Around

Front Seats in

All Seats in

"Get In!"

View from the Back

Both Screens Visible from back seat

December, 2002 - Chapter 19.1.4 - "Seat Foam"

We've decided on Oregon Aero to do our upholstery and temper foam the seats. They were nice enough to offer to ship us their "standard Velocity" foam package at no charge to see if that would meet our need, or allow us to give them input for our seats. We'll ship them the seats for custom foam fitting and leather upholstery, and they'll install the seat heaters as well. Great folks.

Seat Foam Front

Seat Pan Foam

Seat Back Foam

Seat with Foam and Uphostery

, 2002 - Chapter 19.1.5 - "Glue for Installation"

Not yet complete.

, 2002 - Chapter 19.1.6 - "Trim and Weatherstripping"

We will not install a Loran antenna or receiver.

Section 19.2 Installation

, 2002 - Chapter 19.2.1 - "Window Frames"

02/21/2009 Here you can see the finished window frame. I installed these and my baggage ties with self-tapping 10x32 inserts similar to helicoils, which are just long enough to fit between the skins. Just drill a hole and pop them in some flox. Awesome.

Strake window uphostery Installed

02/14/2009 Here I'm working on the windsheild frames. Unlike the main windows, my stock parts seem to fit OK, so I'm just trimming them to fit, with a slight lip under the removeable overhead switch panel, and two screws at the bottom like the mains. The copilot side needed just a bit extra glass to give me something to screw to, otherwise it fit fine.

Strake window uphostery cover

01/16/2009 I tried to fit the window covers to the windows. Like my buddy Andy, I wasn't happy with how they fit, and I had to do covers for the strake windows anyway, so I elected to make my own covers. The West epoxy didn't seem to want to stick Triax on the ceiling, though, so I ended up making them out of EZ84 and Triax. Also, I started by just covering enough of the window for the lay-up, but that was a bad idea.

Strake window uphostery cover

Main window uphostery cover

, 2002 - Chapter 19.2.2 - "Door Headliner"

03/07/2010 As you can see here, we've made a couple of covers for the cockpit walls near the floor to cover wires, rudder cable, and pitot/static tubing. These will be nice because they can be upholstered, and let's be honest, not seeing the planes inner workings assures your passengers. :-) I think this pretty much finishes up the "prepare for interior upholstering" work.

Pilot side wire over

Co-Pilot side wire cover

01/16/2009 We brought the fuselage back to the hangar today. The airport was great about letting us store it, the canard, and the cowling in the back of the FBO's hangar to give us a little more space, and not have to worry about overspray (and about painting in our hangar generally). Jerry worked on installing the door pin receiver covers. I bought extra 10x32 helicoils (self-tapping) from McMaster to pot in flox to screw them down, so he's been grinding them out to match the angles of the pins, and then grinding the pins down flush to the doorsill.

Pilot side Cover

Co-Pilot side Cover

Beauty cover hardpoint

October 16, 2006 - Chapter 19.2.3 - "Fuselage Headliner"

OK, so it's not a headliner, but it's close. Here we stole an idea from the factory, where they'd installed a small bar to hang the headsets from. Pretty slick if you ask me.

Headset Hangar

Not yet complete.

, 2002 - Chapter 19.2.4 - "Carpeting"

Not yet complete.

August, 2004 - Chapter 19.2.5 - "Side Paneling"

Here. This will hide the mechanical systems and structures from view in the cabin. Also, unlike the retract version, we should not need access to anything behind the bulkhead in flight (although a push-pull cable has been installed to the fuel shut-off valve). The lower portion of the bulkhead will also form the baggage platform, so it needs to be fairly sturdy.

August, 2004 In addition to side paneling, a false bulkhead needs to be made for the rear of the aircraft. This will hide the mechanical systems and structures from view in the cabin. Also, unlike the retract version, we should not need access to anything behind the bulkhead in flight (although a push-pull cable has been installed to the fuel shut-off valve). The lower portion of the bulkhead will also form the baggage platform, so it needs to be fairly sturdy.

Whale-Tail Template

Whale-Tail Bulkhead Fitting

Luggage Shelf

June, 2004 - Chapter 19.2.6 - "Seat Belts"

We've purchased automotive seat belts in a matching gray color for our interior. We've also mounted the hardpoints to mount them to. In the front the shoulder hardpoint is in the rollover beam, and then the lower hardpoints mount to the keel and side of the fuselage, respectively. In the rear, the lower hardpoints are similarly mounted, but the shoulder belt hardpoint mounts to the angled portion of the spar reinforcing box. Each of these is drilled and tapped for a 7/16" bolt.

Front Inside Belt Mount

Front Outside Belt Mount

Front Shoulder Belt Mount

Rear Outside Belt Mounts

Rear Shoulder Belt Mount

Front Seats and Belts installed!

Rear seat belts installed

November, 2004 - Chapter 19.2.7 - "Glare Shield"

I'm not sure what other folks do for their glare shields, and the directions in the manual are pretty skimpy. What I've decided to do is this, I'll brace the back (it tends to droop) with two aluminum plates that mount to the fuselage just in front of the windscreen, and add to angle brackets on the back of the instrument panel to hold the front end of the glare shield in place. This involves the usual recessing of AL hard points into the fuselage and glare shield, and drilling and tapping both.

Two Fore Glare Shield Mounting Plates from Nose

Two Fore Glare Shield Mounting Plates from Cabin

Instrument Panel Angle Brace

The glare shield will also have a set of luminescent panels installed to add some flooding light to the instrument panel in soft green (similar to the Timex Indiglo), and for map reading. These will be recessed into the glare shield so that they are not obvious, and they'll have a dimmer so that you can adjust them for the right amount of lighting.

Glare Shield Lighting Installation - line is instrument panel depth

Installed Glare Shield Lighting

The glare shield will also house a defogger for the pilot side of the windscreen that the bilge blower will power. There will be a separate diverter valve that allows the warm air to be diverted from the floor heat vents to the defogger.

Defogger plenum and Deflector

Defogger Plenum Mounted

Final Panel and Glareshield

Various - Chapter 19.2.8 - "Interior Door Cover"

December, 2009 Here we're finally installing the door cover panels. Since we're going to be looking to have the upholstery installed this spring we need to finalize some of these details so they can do their work. Here we've used structural epoxy to mount the attach points, which were previously made (see below). Because of the previous alignment issue with the pilot side strake, the cover had to be mounted slightly low on the door to match up with the strake, so we also need to add just a bit of BID to the cover to match the window line properly.

Door Latch Pin Reciever Covers

Inside Door Cover

June, 2007 The door cover panels are pre-molded by the factory. There's a hump where the door handle comes through, but figuring out where exactly was a bit challenging, so I ended up needing to close up my first hole a bit. Also, stealing an idea from my buddy Andy, I used left-over foam with a light BID covering to form the standoffs it'll be screwed to.

Finding the door lever opening location

Making the cover stand-offs

February 2010 - Baggage Tie-Downs

Here you can see a couple of shots of the finished tie-downs. As I say, it's probably overkill, but I doubt I'll ever need to add any. ;-)

Baggage shelf cargo netting

We're installing baggage tie-downs so we can use cargo nets to restrain our cargo. These things are horribly expensive, but I think they're necessary and I like these things. I'm putting in three across the front of the whale-tail, and three across the back of the baggage shelf, as well as 2 high above the shelf. I'm also installing installing 6 across the top and bottom of the strake openings, mainly because we hope to mate them with long-range tanks, but also because Elizabeth plans to make custom bags for storing luggage in these nooks.

Baggage shelf cargo netting

Strake opening Cargo Netting

Luggage shelf tie downs

01/18/2009 We're gearing up to move into our new diggs, but in the meantime we potted our door pin reciever covers in, and installed the Reiff preheat system. Also you can see the spray foam we're making the beauty covers on the sides of the footwells.

Beauty cover

Beauty cover, pilot side

January/February 2010 - Door Pin Covers

02/21/2009 Here we're finally getting to potting the door pins into attractive shapes under the pin covers with flox. Not only do these look much nicer, the flush finish keeps them from goring your butt when you're getting in and out of the airplane. Jerry did a really nice job of fitting the pins to the covers.

Aft pin

Fore pin

Upper pin

01/17/2009 We worked on the door covers some more today, and should be ready to pot them in tomorrow. I also put the cylinder band heaters on the cyliners (which went pretty well aside from #3 which really didn't want to wrap around). I'll put the sump heater on tomorrow. We also covered all of the wires and things in the footwell and made a damn, and sprayed foam in there. The idea is to get make an uphostery cover that I can sand to shape and then throw 1 BID over, and then get covered in leather to make it pretty. In other news, our Sky Diving operation moved to Middletown, and in so doing opened up a bunch of hangar space. Of interest is a pair of hangars, one of which is insulated, next to each other with the dividing wall removed, and a half-hangar office connected. Can somebody tell me what about that doesn't say SWEET? I fully intend to get the insulated hangar and office for my parts storeroom (it's already airconditioned!), and I'm trying to get Jerry and Bob to pick up the neigboring hangar so we can setup on compressor and workbench in between the two and keep our planes side-by-side. It also happens to have 480V 3 phase in there, in case we want a big compressor, and has the fusebox in case we overload a circuit we can reset it.

Side-by-Side Velocity Parking? I hope so...

The office/pilot's lounge/storeroom

Rear Cover Panel

02/21/2009 We've started installing these baggage tie downs, and I'm putting three across the front of the shelf and three on the shelf, as well as two up high in the back (and there pairs at the back of the strake openings). These will give us several options for tying down luggage.

The instruction on the rear cover panel are pretty sparse, to say the least, basically saying that there should be one. I've decided to go with a "luggage shelf" directly on top of the fuel sump. On top of the whale-tail that has the end of the tube and bell-crank arrangement for the aileron controls, I've glassed and extension that raises up enough to house our 10 disc CD/DVD changer and the ELT beacon box. This shelf is supported outboard by two "beams" that hold the shelf above the sump. These beams are 4" 3/8" dyvinicel foam with BID laid up on both sides laid flat, with a further 3/8" x 1" support glassed underneath on edge to try to combat any sagging of the support. The shelf it's self is 3/8" foam board with TRIAX reinforcing on both sides. This shelf ended up being 10" deep and 4' wide. You can see more about the luggage shelf above.

From here, I made poster board mock-ups of the space vertically up to the roof from the shelf, with a slanted portion outboard of the fuel vent lines to end just aft of the back of the rear windows. This was then fabbed from the 3/8" foam board, and then supports made for it. First, a TRIAX lip was added to the aft side of the shelf to keep the vertical wall from sliding aft, then lips were added to the two outboard sections to 'capture' the rear of the center section. Then I taped the outboard two sections vertically and glassed supports behind them onto the roof-top NACA scoops and onto duct tape, that will act as a flange to keep the top from moving rearward. Then I did the same with the center section. This created the base of the vertical supports, though I may add some additional bracing later, since on climb-out this wall will take the majority of the luggage weight, and I don't want any of the mechanicals or the ELT antenna to be damaged.

Making the Templates for the Rear Bulkhead

Forming the Luggage Shelf Rear Lip

Forming the Lips on the Outboard Panels

Fitting the Center Panel

Rear Panel Rough-Fitted

~ End of Chapter ~