Baggage compartment the Arizona Way.

[Norm]

Last winter I was lucky enough to visit DF4 and the Arizona Skunkworks. While there I noticed Steve built his baggage compartment from dacron and glued direct to the tubes behind the seat. An aluminum frame keeps stuff from falling on the linkages. I liked the idea and this is how mine turned out.

Also did the wide body mod as I could not believe the room in DessertFox4's Model IV.

And I almost have enough room for my Travel Guitar.

[DesertFox4]

Looks good Norm. Two mods I love on the 4.

Next, retractable gear.

[Northof49]

Looks really good Norm .
Mike

[Norm]

Steve I guess I will have to come back south so you can show me how that retractable gear mounts.

Mike I sent you a PM. We can get together and compare notes.

[jiott]

Looks good Norm, but better get rid of that plastic header tank.

[kmach]

Norm ,
where do you fly out of in Calgary? or where will you be with your IV?

[Norm]

This is another shot of the baggage compartment from the front. Lots of room for tents, sleeping bags and all the necessary items for a little plane camping.

[jiott]

How do you take it out if you need to work on something underneath like mixer assembly or elevator pushrod?

[DesertFox4]

All accessable just by removing the seat.

[HighWing]

I feel sort of compelled to mention this. The thought began a week or so ago when my wife was discussing her CQ - Continuing Qualification coming up at United Airlines. She had mentioned something about the seat belt demonstration prior to every take off in a commercial airplane - how strictly the instructors were demanding each candidate perform during the testing procedures. The topic then went to talk about our rather hard emergency landing that put our seat belts to the real test.

The pictures of the baggage sack shows clearly the very poor positioning of the right - pilot and left - passenger attachments for the shoulder straps. The center lug is almost useless for keeping the respective shoulder harness straps equally positioned behind pilot and passenger. Recognizing that early on as frequent need to reposition the strap became frustrating while flying my first IV, I had made straps that would go between the shoulder straps across the chest. In our hard landing (Crash), my nylon cross strap was destroyed - literally torn apart - shredded, while my wife's held firm. It was her mention of her belief that that strap saved her from more serious injury is what prompted this discussion.

I would strongly suggest in the early Kitfox models something that would secure those straps across the chest. In my present airplane, there were some contemporary builders who were modifying the structure behind the seats for baggage sack access and other reasons. I doubt what I chose to do would be practical for most builders or even desirable in some minds, but the strap issue was eliminated.

The picture shows the mods. First, all the cross braces were cut out. Then the bracing structure of the skylight was essentially duplicated behind the seats with new shoulder strap anchors placed exactly centered behind pilot and passenger. Not seen is the tube welded behind each attachment point and running aft to the outside corners of the Turtle deck opening to resist impact forces.

Just a thought.