11 June 2011 – After another few discussions with some experienced Canardians familiar with the old glory days of the Cafe Races, I decided on another modification. Now I’m sure this may very well elicit some groans and ha-rumphs, and maybe even a few mutterings of how crazy I am, to put it politely, but I decided I was going pulley-less and running my rudder cables from Point-A (the rudder pedals) through a curved conduit that traverses through the centersection spar, makes a semi-shallow bend and heads to Point B (the rudders). No fiberglass strands will be hurt in the making of this modification, just merely slightly separated at the holes in the foam so that glass strength and integrity is still in tact on the centersection spar. So, no pulleys means that I don’t require the pulley brackets, and thus no “ears” on the firewall.
Once I finished cutting the ears off the firewall, I could get to glassing it (and laying up CF on the instrument panel).
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12 June 2011 — Ok, obviously by just that fact that I’m building an “experimental” airplane I like to experiment, at least a bit. I thought quite a lot on how I wanted my instrument panel to look. I wasn’t sure exactly, but I figured I would make the top layer Carbon Fiber on the front face of the panel to A) Add stiffness and B) Add coolness. I ordered some CF in my last Aircraft Spruce order and after it came in, I assessed it one last time and decided to pull the trigger!
