ORIGINAL: bentleyblower
Hi Paul
Your posting on the Lancair was rather a long time ago, but I was completely enthralled with the job you did on the second aircraft.
I live in U.K. and am currently piecing together the Lancair ARTF kit. I am finding that the position of the battery/rx tray will be difficult to get to on a flying day basis and I was intrigued to see that you had made the baggage door openable.
Any tips that you may have, on how you so neatly cut this door out of the fuselage, put a trim round the inside and installed some form of hinge and locking mechanism, would be greatly appreciated.
May I also know what engine you used and from the photographs, it would seem that you reworked the nose oleo, so any tips there would be equally welcome.
With kind regards and thanks.
John Sangster - Berkshire UK.
Whoa, I'm sorry I never saw this post. Here's how I did the baggage door. Most importantly, I had a wrecked fuse from our first Lancair

that was undamaged in that area.
So I was able to cut out the door from that fuse, and not worry about damaging the area around it. Then I was able to hog out the door area on the new fuse, and wasn't worried about
saving that door. Then I took the "good" door and covered it with duct tape on the inside and around all the edges to the outside, and taped it in place from the outside of the fuse.
Then I glassed over the inside of the fuse in that area with several layers of fine (don't know the exact oz. weight anymore) fiberglass. After that set, I removed the door (resin doesn't stick to duct tape)
which revealed a full glassed over recessed opening. Then I used a sanding drum on the dremmel to hog out the opening and shape the door stop. This could all be done without a spare fuse by either cutting the door out very carefully, or making a mold of the hatch area of the fuse, then laying up a new hatch in that mold. The hinges are offset gear door hinges (either Dubro or Rocket City brand I believe), and the latch is a BVM Hatch latch (
www.bvmjets.com). If you cut out the hatch and have funky gaps or insightly irregularities in the corners, etc., just cover the door with duct tape and tape it in place completely covering all the cracks from the outside of the fuse. Then fill the gap from the inside with an epoxy/micro balloons or baking soda mixture. When you remove everything, the opening will be the exact shape of the hatch door with a gap the thickness of the duct tape you applied to the door prior to taping it in place from the outside.
Hope that helps, if not too late

Paul