Earthstar Forums

I have used clear heavy duty packing tape cut to sizeto help keep cold air and rain out.It works however the electrical friction tape sounds like a better solution because of it's flexibility and durability. Plus it should blend in appearance wise with the black chromoly tubing.   Has anyone come up with a good gap seal at the bottomof the door? Cold air blasts in from that source and I have yet to come up with a durable clean looking solution    Fly the JT2 Thundergull    Carl

Two things
1. Put a slight kink in the aluminum at the bottom of the door. Make the kink along the entire bottom about half to three quarter inch high and bend it toward the fuselage. This gets rid of the scooping action of that joint. It's better to do with a brake when the alum strip is separate but I did it with a hand seamer and with the door attached. I marked an even line with a pencil for reference.

2. Put a strip of self adhesive weatherstripping that covers from the lower part of the horizontal door tube to the bottom of the kinked aluminum strip.

Mark Drzymkowski

(Off topic) Mark, how do we pronounce Drzymkowski? What's the word root for *ski names? Know a couple of folks, Rob Ratkowski and Eric Mazur who is a Balkanski professor of physics; every year i come across technical papers and such, Rabkowski, Pogorzelski and i wonder...

D RZH IHM KOF SKI

It's Polish, and quite a mouthful.

Mark Drzymkowski

RZH like rhizome (mass of roots in botany)? mine's like chou as in chowder, dh as in duh, ary as in ternary..
rc

On my Gull 2000 the top corner of the door pulls open about 3/4 of an inch from the slip stream at 95 mph.
Not as much at lower air speeds. The only solution I can see is to make a second latch.

Mike S

Yup, mine too. Now that I’m doing side raising and stiffening, that may go away. I just replaced the right side window upgrading from 1/16th to 3/32 lexan as it flexed at speeds above 100 mph. Oh what fun, huh??

I replaced my side lexan with 3/32 and the top of the door still pulls open. It did make the right side a little stiffer but the door still flexes.
95 mph is my usual cruising speed in relatively smooth air. I get the best fuel consumption at about 85.
When it gets real rough the gull handles it better at 85 as well.

And Here's John Glenn, 1st to orbit earth. Doors rubber liners like that would call for a decent design enhancement

And Here's John Glenn, 1st to orbit earth. Doors rubber liners like that would call for a decent design enhancement