Weed cover on

I always knew that it would be over-optimistic to think that I’d be able to get 28AAD’s fuselage cover on and do the work on the engine electrics, so I wasn’t surprised that the only job that I did complete today was fitting the fuselage cover. Then again, I prefer to do one job properly to my satisfaction rather than two badly, so I was pleased with the result at the end of the afternoon.

The Weed’s fuselage cover is in good condition but it’s been stretched a bit, I think, because of the excessive use of padding by whoever last fitted it. That meant that I had to position it very carefully to get it as taught as possible on the fuselage framework and it took a couple of attempts to get it right. From experience, the aircraft will need to be flown a bit for it to move a little and fit as snuggly as it should, but it went on pretty well if a bit further forward than I would have liked.

This was necessary to get the top overlap right so the Velcro strips on each side along the top of the cover lined up – the further forward the cover is moved, the greater the effective circumference of the fuselage and the smaller becomes the overlap. The technique that I prefer is to half overlap the Velcros and lace the cover onto the fuselage frame. Then when you lace the sides of the cover together along the top tube, that tightens it up and the Velcro overlap becomes complete as it should be.

Here are some shots of the finished job with the Weedhopper now looking much more like a complete aircraft and more as I remember it from when I bought it.

I had another pleasant surprise at lunch time when there was a tap on the door and a lady delivery driver stood outside with a long plastic-wrapped parcel. It was the fabric that I’d ordered for the Savannah panel top delivered at long last. I ordered two alternatives – a padded leatherette material and another more fibrous one of the type that you get in car boots. Here’s a shot of them that I took when I’d opened the parcel and they were laid out together on my kitchen floor.

It’s early days, but I think that I’ll go for the leatherette, which is a very high quality, hard-wearing material. The deciding factor, I think, is that I’ll be able to stick my GPS bracket to it using Velcro, as I like to do, which won’t be possible with the other one. But at least I can now continue with the Savannah screen repair after waiting all this time!