In the middle of all the sanding, pinhole patrol and final prep, I had to work on the “human factors”. After I got my seat geometry figured out and Oregon Aero modified the foam. I wanted to verify that I could fit inside the cabin and reach everything. So brought the seat down with me along with the foam and mounted it in the plane… And it still wasn’t right. It took me a while to determine what was wrong. I could reach the stick and instrument panel but I literally had to reach. If I moved the seat forward, the stick and panel were within reach. But then my knees were sticking up too high. I guess that I have long legs.

I could move the instrument panel back but that wouldn’t help reaching the control stick. I could move that back as well but then I approached it from a different angle. What’s keeping me so far back? Obviously the length of my legs, but what else?

Rudder pedals.

If the rudders pedals were located a bit forward, then I would be closer to the panel and stick. I tried tweaking the adjustments on the rudder pedals but I couldn’t move them far enough forward. So I decided to modify them.

Here’s a (right) side view of one of the rudder pedals.

On the right is where you would put your foot. The white triangular piece is where the pedal assembly mounts. It’s allowed to pivot up and down to activate the brakes. The hole to the right of the mount is where the brake master cylinder attaches. What I did was to drill a new set of holes 1.5″ forward (right in this picture). This results in the pedal being 1.5″ aft of it’s original position. Now with the seat adjusted so that my feet are on the pedals, the stick is at my right hand and the instrument panel is easily within reach. It could be better. But for now, it’ll do. Here’s the “after” picture.