Friday, April 13, 2012

During the hibernation....

It's been a long winter and I've stayed away from both the blog and my SeaRey project for a while. You'll recall that the frame-hull mating did not go very well, and I was frustrated with both the kit and my build so I decided it was time to take a break.

During the winter I finally was able to settle on the seat material. At the time I bought OspRey PA was only offering a vinyl for the seats and I didn't want that, I wanted something a bit warmer plus made to aircraft flammability standards, etc. After a long search it was suggested I contact Abby at Flightline Interiors. Abby does great work for the RV-series of aircraft, but she also worked with me to find a nice fabric.The fabric was shipped to PA, and 6 weeks later......




In July 2010 John  Spratt flew his 2006 SeaRey N48CJ to the Arlington Airshow, and kindly took me for a ride. 




I very much liked his non-standard throttle setup and am working on duplicating it on my aircraft. The throttle quadrant is from Aircraft Spruce, I've machined (uhhhh.... more than once) the bracket, and had a local machine shop conform a hunk of nylon for a saddle.

 
 

The thing I really like about the new setup is instead of having my shoulder hunched up to reach the throttle, it's perfectly placed to be under my hand when my arm is resting on my leg. Oh, the loverly advantages of building your own airplane.



The boom tube bracket mystery was also solved when PA shipped me new brackets that fit perfectly.