Cozy MKIV - Chapter 13 (Section 3)

Nose Cone / Landing Lights / Pitot-Static Tube(s)

Start Date: March 3, 1996

I started out by making and mounting the NG-31 and NG-32 bulkheads to F-0 and then cutting holes and spaces in them (and F-0) to clear the landing lights. You can (barely) make this out here in this psychedelic version of a photograph. I also trimmed the outside of the bulkheads so that the nose cone (from AeroCad) would fit snugly.

Next, I made sheet metal brackets (also visible here) to which to bolt the landing lights. These fasten to F-0 with AN-3 bolts and nutplates on an aluminum backing plate glassed to the back of F-0.

NG-30's Next, I attacked the landing light windows in the nose cone. First, I looked at the nose cone from directly ahead, measured where the center of the lights would end up, and then drew circles on the nose cone of the diameter of the landing lights. Of course, on the ellipsoid nose cone, the projected circles end up as some god-awful elliptical shape. I then cut out sheets of 1/8" Plexiglas (actually Perspex) to a slightly larger size than the windows would be, heated them to ~300 deg. F in the oven, and molded them to shape over the nose cone by pushing on them with oven mitts. Worked pretty well, at least on the second attempt :-). Then I cut out the openings for the windows in the nose cone, and slowly sanded the windows smaller while sanding the openings larger, until I had about 1/8" overlap all the way around. I then sanded a 30 degree angle on the rims of the windows and the inside of the opening, so that when I positioned the windows in the openings they sat essentially flush with the exterior of the nose cone. Then I floxed the windows in place, after masking them with electrical tape. You can see the window positions in this view of the inside of the nose cone (after painting flat black to reduce reflections and glare.

NG-30's

While futzing with all that, I had installed (floxed in) the removable pitot tube in the nose bulkheads. After thinking about it, I didn't like the "dip" that the line took, and I dug out the whole thing and reinstalled it so that the line has a constant upward slope as it heads rearward. You can see the pitot line here, with the old position of the line in the removed section of the bulkhead:

NG-30's

I made a removable door for the nose cone (provided with the nose cone from AeroCad) by glassing a lip around the front of the door so that it was captured in the front). Two screws (with nutplates) hold the door on.

NG-30's

You can see both landing lights installed here (prior to pitot tube installation).

NG-30's This view shows the nose cone floxed in position with micro around the door (to fair it in). You can see the LL windows in the lower area, and the pitot tube attachment in the center (with a plug in it). After attachment, I repainted the whole interior flat black. You can also see the fuselage sides microed in place just behind the nose cone, with the fuselage bottom underneath (all prior to final shaping).

Last, but not least, I marked the fuselage sides for the position of the static ports, drilled out the foam from the inside, bent up the soft 1/4" aluminum tubing to fit, and microed one tube in place on each side of the fuselage. After cure and sanding, I drilled three 1/16" holes into each static port tube.

End Date: March 29, 1996

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