Ivan's RV-7

Trimming carbon fiber panelTimer icon2h

March 5, 2026

Life has taken all my time and energy, so progress has almost stalled. However, I spent some time over a few days to fit the AeroSport carbon fiber panel.

The panel frame is screwed in place. Everything fits okay so far.

Panel frame attached with screws

The panel itself needs to be trimmed to fit around the fuselage structure. I marked the locations as well as I could and used Dremel to trim the holes.

Trimmed area

The end result is not perfect, some gaps are just a tad bigger than they should be, but otherwise it looks fine to me.

Carbon fiber panel trimmed

I haven't bought any avionics yet, but I will install the mounting angles in the central area for the avionics stack. Also, I think I can fit the buttons and some of the wires. I haven't ordered the finishing kit yet -- I want to make sure things get a bit more stable in the software industry world before I commit to building the second half of the airplane.