Canopy Skirt

As anticipated, the canopy skirt has taken a significant number of hours to complete.  Trying to get this phase completed during the winter months hampered our progress.  Epoxy resin's don't do well in sub-freezing temperatures.

We started with the VANS stock molded piece of fiberglass.  The U shaped part that's shipped from the factory needed to be highly customized in order to properly fit the fuselage and canopy.  This involved splitting the part in two and re-fabricating a large portion of the rear section.

Vacuum bag was applied to skirt skin in order to maximize contact with aircraft fuselage and canopy surfaces.  This didn't work out too well because of vacuum leakage from behind the skirt inside the cockpit.  There was no way to seal the leaks.

The skirt was cut and fitted to the canopy frame.  Holes in the skirt were match drilled to holes in the canopy frame.  Next step was to add about an inch of glass buildup to the entire upper edge of the canopy skirt so that the top of the skirt was level with the top edge of the canopy frame.

Nylon tape was applied as a release film on the aircraft fuselage skin and canopy.  Multiple layers of glass were applied to the upper surface of the canopy skirt.

The two skirt halves were joined by reinforcing the back with pieces of insulating foam.  Fiberglass wet layup was applied over the foam pieces.

Rough finish after the wet layup joining of the two skirt halves.

Skirt joined and ready for finishing fills and LOTS of sanding.