Nose Gear Box Floor

As a refresher, the NG-30 structure was bonded onto the front of the Cozy fuselage as the first step to building the Nose Gear Box. The NG-30 panels are what house the nose gear retract unit (the mechanism that moves the nose gear up and down). Outside of this unit, rudder pedals, brake reservoirs, and other mechanical goodness will reside. Also, since the pedals will be around this area, the pilot's and front passenger's heels will need to rest on something. 

It was time to carve out the floor using 2 in. thick urethane foam. Instead of laboring with a hacksaw and hope, Ced plugged the desired dimensions into his CNC to roughly carve the urethane foam to shape. Hey, if we have the tool we might as well utilize it.

From here, Ced cut the excess foam off and handed them over to me with instructions to carve away until the fit was snug. The floor needed to be level with the F-22 bulkhead (the panel the NG-30 unit was bonded to), fit 1.1 inches up from the bottom of the F-0 bulkhead (the oval panel at the forward end of the NG-30 unit), and follow the contour of the NG-30's (note the doubler profile). I found this part extremely frustrating, but it eventually came out.

With right and left floors carved to fit, they were sanded to smooth out the CNC ridges. We then bonded them into place with micro (glass balloons and resin).

Notice the floors are oversized. This allows plenty of material to carve when creating the contour of the nose.

To create a smooth transition from the nose gear box floors to the fuselage floor, we opted to pack a thick mixture of micro in the joggle (the little step down behind the F-22 bulkhead).

Once the floors were cured, it was time to micro and glass them. We taped off the perimeter to help show us where to prep and glass.

 

The foam was coated in micro and 2 plies of BID were laid down over the entire area marked off with green tape.

A few strips of peel ply were placed in the areas where more bonding will happen and the parts were allowed to cure.

(Quick summary: Foam was carved to shape and bonded into place. Note the diagram below for positions.)