The extended weekend after Thanksgiving gave me a few more hours to get things done.  I focused on two major areas: the completion of the undercarriage; and the build out of the lower instrument panel.  I got some great help  from one of my brothers and from my wife which made things go much quicker.

I was able to finish constructing that "temporary" undercarriage that I've now decided will be permanent. That being the case I'll be doing a few cosmetic improvements on it in the near future and will then paint it black.

  Last weekend I posted pics of how I used the landing gear mounts for the back of the undercarriage.  For the front I took advantage of three points that were structurally stronger than other parts of the air frame, the section of frame where the nose gear mount attaches, and the two wing strut mounts.

The salvage yard cut the wing struts off about 8" away form the fuselage which left the 1" square x 6" long mounting arm intact.  I had to grind the rivet heads off to get the last of the wing strut sheet metal off the mounting arms and also trim back some fuselage sheet metal and cut away part of the frame to allow them to swing strait down.  With that done I was able to bolt them to the newly made undercarriage.  My brother and my wife gave me a great deal of help this weekend and that made for much easier work and allowed me to get it done in about half the time.

It'll look a lot more aircraft like when I get he windshield installed, more about that below, and even more so when I get he upper engine cowl and nose bowl mounted.  I just picked up both pieces on eBay, but there was some damage in transit so I'm working it out with the seller.  In the interim I'm also on the hunt for the correct fasteners to install it and designing a support frame to make up for the fact that there will be no lower cowl to support it.  I want to keep it removable for maintenance purposes and to allow easier access in the future when I look at adding  a force feedback system to the yoke and rudder pedals.  As mentioned before, after all that I'll be making some end caps to cover where the wings were mounted and a back cover.  I'm also working on several ideas for cockpit ventilation and hoping to take advantage of the existing air ducts including those located in the forward inside edge of the wing ends where they would have come up against the windshield.      

For the lower instrument panel I had to cut out a few more switch spaces for some of the unique I/O I'm adding  to emulate a few different aircraft.  This included adding a prop pitch control, a landing gear switch (a bit of a squeeze and compromise on the positioning), a second split master switch, and an A/B center off switch.  The last two are part of what I'll be doing to emulate twin engine configs like the 337 Skymaster.  Those switch additions also required that I relocate a couple existing switches like the carb heat, alternate static source, and cabin/panel dimmer control.  I purchased the plastic trim cover blank from Dawson Aircraft.  Because it comes in as a blank I had to trim it to fit, then mark and cut out all the switch and cable holes.  This is where my wife's eye for detail and exceptional patience comes in.  My brother and I marked it up and did the rough cuts, then turned it over to my wife who did a great job with the detailed finish cuts.

After that it was time to install it and begin mounting the various switches and cables.  Some for test fit purposes before final modifications others are there permanently waiting for the wire harness to be installed.  I'm now on the hunt for a couple more switch bezels for the split master switch and avionics mater switch.  Two other thing I'll be changing: 1. Because I didn't recess all the screws behind the panel I'll be changing out those that show (like the six holding in the landing gear switch) for flat head black anodized hardware; and 2. Three of the generic switches I purchased came with chromed knobs, those will be replaced with either original Cessna, or at least Cessna like knobs.  The other puzzle piece yet to be put in place is a complete set of circuit breakers.  I installed the originals that I had and may actually use a few for some of the 12 volt systems but I'm also considering some simulated breakers that could be tripped via FSX offsets through FSUIPC and FS2Phidgets via a Phidget relay card.  For the balance of the breakers they'll either be dummies, or push button switches used to trigger simulator functions from within the cockpit.

I did manage to squeeze in one last piece of work, or at least start it, before wrapping things up.  Planning ahead and thinking about the windshield install in a couple months I started to repair the damage to the upper mounting slot.  There was no apparent damage there in the post accident pictures so I'm assuming that was the result of some expedient wing removal at he salvage yard.  Regardless though it needs to be repaired before the new windshield goes in.  I was a little concerned based on my experience trying to rework some of the other fuselage skin.  However the being a slightly heavier grade of metal it was a little easier to reform without any stress cracks forming.

It turned out to be fairly easy to fix the upper skin with a little persuasion from a rubber mallet and some carefully placed blocking,  The lower lip though is a bit more difficult due to the folds in it that must maintain proper dimension to allow the upper lip of the windshield to slide through.  That will require some additional work to reform the original shape and I'm going to make up a small steel tool to reshape it.  With that done all that's left to do before installing the windshield is to get the dash panel upholstery glued back in.  I have the material ordered but no word on it coming in yet.   Plenty of time to work on that though since the windshield isn't in the budget until the January/February time frame as I mentioned last week.  Unless of course Santa is real good to me at the end of the month . . . ;-)

So, that's all for now.  Not sure how much time I'll have over the next couple weeks to get more done, but I'll be sure to post another update when I get a little further.  Thanks for the guestbook posts on the main web site and please don't hesitate to add some comments to the blog as well.