Designing a Baggage Door

[zemon]

Hello,

I want add a baggage door to the side of the Bede BD-4C that I am building and I am looking for design ideas/tips/hints.

This ought to be a pretty simple project. The skin on the side of the BD-4C is flat and bears no loads of any sort. There is adequate space between the aluminum angles of the fuselage so I do not need to compromise the structure of the plane in any way. I will add any pieces needed to support the door, hinge, and latch (of course).

How would you create a door which is

• weather-proof
• reasonably simple
• lockable
• sleek and supersonic

Thanks,
-- Art Z.

[FlyingRon]

Even though the sheet metal on the sides isn't holding structure like a monocoque, you probably need to reinforce around the "hole" you're going to make to keep the panel rigid enough and to keep it from cracking. You can use this reinforcing to make a "lip" around the inside of the hole and place some weatherstripping. The door can then just be a piece the same as the skin that fits into the hole with a piano hinge. You may made to reinforce the door to make it stiffer (especially to facilitate whatever you're using to latch it.

[zemon]

Ron,

Will the piano hinge leak water in the rain?

-- Art Z.

[FlyingRon]

No, because the hinge isn't any more a part of it than the rest of the door edge. You place the weather stripping on the recessed part of the doorframe.

[zemon]

Wonderful! Thank you, Ron.

-- Art Z.

[WLIU]

Walk around your local airport and look at how Cessna, Piper, and Mooney did it. Not rocket science. AC 43.13-2B talks about using doublers around skin openings. And Aircraft Spruce and Wicks sell the rubber gasketting material you will need.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[zemon]

Walk around your local airport and look at how Cessna, Piper, and Mooney did it. Not rocket science. AC 43.13-2B talks about using doublers around skin openings. And Aircraft Spruce and Wicks sell the rubber gasketting material you will need.

Wes,

Thanks. I will check out AC 43.13-2B. It's sitting on my shelf; I don't know why I didn't think to start there. :-/

The doors on a Piper Cherokee are a depressing conglomeration of curved pieces of aluminum. But after talking with some folks (and starting with the flat-sided fuselage of the BD-4C), I have a plan which ought to be easy to build while meeting all of my requirements.

-- Art Z.