I recently had a young visitor, Jeffrey, a 13 yr old, who saw my project and thought it was very cool! He was quite impressed, which was music to my ears as I love to see interest from the potential next generation of pilots.
He then asked, where are the cup holders? I laughed and said "I like the way you think son" as I had already been contemplating where to add some cup holders if I could. Again, as mentioned many times, there is not much room to work with. Compounding the fact that I have the CAD side panels, which I really didn't want to be cutting into if I didn't have to.
Several months ago I spotted these collapsible cup holders at the local "Bass Pro Shop." I remember thinking...hmm, these might be handy for the plane. Fast forward to now. I went back to the store, took a look again, and bought them...$8 each, cheapest thing I've bought for the plane. Now, where to put 'em?
I came up with mounting them right between my legs forward of the spar carry through. They are easy to reach, but out of the way of the stick and really everything else except maybe your feet if you pulled them back. But, since they collapse...you can easily fold them up when not in use and you don't even know they are there.
So...time to cut my carpet. I know, I know...sucks to cut my nice new carpet, but its going to be ok. Worst case scenario I buy a new piece of carpet. After some careful measuring...checking, double checking...I made the cut.
I then used my heat gun to apply some heat to the cut edges to clean them up...looks professional.
This is how the cup holder fits into the carpet...again, looks nice.
Drilling and attaching to the cover panel.
In place...collapsed...hard to even notice they are there.
A bottle of water fits nicely in place. I don't have any pics of me sitting in the cockpit...but I will admit to doing a test run with a bottle of beer and it worked perfectly. I didn't take a picture of that since I could just see the FAA getting a hold of a picture like that!! Beer in the cockpit!?? And no, I obviously don't condone that.
I really like this idea...and man, I'm hoping I finally came up with an original one!? Its tough in the world of RV's...lots of great ideas already out there. I haven't seen anyone do this one yet though.
The only issues are...the cup holders are kind of cheap and might break if accidentally kicked (I think I will buy an extra as a spare), they don't have a good detent to keep them closed so might want to pop open during aerobatics or a hard landing (we'll see). I already thought, that will be my measure of a good landing..."did the cup holder pop open?"...no?...then it was a good one. :)
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