THIS IS PRETTY REVOLUTIONARY...WIDEN THE FUSELAGE 6 inches....WITHOUT widening it. HMMM?
I decided to think outside the box...er...fuselage with this one. As soon as I build my strakes I can start on this.
Despite all my controls and armrests being finished, I have decide to accomplish this modification to create wider seats and 3 inch per side wider room in the front cabin. By reinstalling the controls on the OUTSIDE of the fuselage and creating curved sides superimposed over the exterior of the fuselage, a 6 inch "widening effect" can be achieved. This may add only about 3-4 pounds weight per side,complete. This will allow the armrests to be outside the existing fuselage sides in the front seat area and ones elbows, and for bigger type front seat occupants, will be in a much more relaxed/wider flying position whilst using the side-stick controls. This coupled with the Cozy Girrls wider strakes will make the cabin really great for wider fliers. As shown... the leg openings can be made larger for more comfort. The canard linkage from the stick to the canard needs to be altered, but other than that it is all pretty straight forward. See the notes on the drawings. The strakes attach to the existing fuselage sides all the way to the front seat backs, at the seat backs and above at the forward longerons. this provides the similar structural. Only the sides from the front seat elbows forward are altered from plans, see sketches. I am undecided about the backseat armrests and may omit them altogether, as the fuel lines can be outside the fuselage and run from the sumps to enter at the seatback to get to the fuel valve. No more funky plans external sump blisters as they are inside the curved new fuselage sides. Since the new curved sides are fairings and not primary structural elements, I can place some access covers where needed under the strakes for wiring,sump connection access, etc. The crowning aesthetic consideration of this is that now the fuselage has a pleasing curved fuselage shape instead of the flat sides (which are still pretty great looking) of a stock Cozy. I will post pics as I build this out.
CLICK ON THE BELOW TO ENLARGE MY SKETCHES, PICS, etc.