In June we completed the mold pattern and mold for the aft fuselage floor, which is our last large mold. We made our largest Soric panel to date and machined it to create the instrument panel, forward electronics enclosure, and seat bottom frames. Progress was also made on the cowling and its build instructions. 

Instrument Panel and Electronics Box
We built several new structures using our Soric panel material by employing the same folding technique used in our fuselage bulkheads. These new structures included our forward electronics box and the instrument panel. As with the folded fuselage bulkheads, these Soric panel structures are relatively easy to manufacture compared with a molded equivalent and can be easily changed in design on future versions. In the case of the instrument panel, this means we can tailor the cutouts to different layouts.

Cowling Fasteners
Fasteners were added to the cowlings to join the top and bottom halves together. We chose to use a piano hinge style fastener due to its simplicity of installation and clean aesthetics. Removal of the cowling to access the engine bay area will be simple as the hinge pins can be easily removed through the cooling inlets and the nose gear doors. As we installed the fasteners and joined the cowling halves together, everything was thoroughly documented in a set of instructions since these construction steps will be performed by builders. Future cowling work will include cutting the cooling inlets and installing the fasteners that join the full cowling assembly to the fuselage.

Aft Fuselage Floor Mold
We completed construction on the mold pattern and mold for the aft fuselage floor. This was a large mold measuring nearly 10 feet long and required involvement from the whole team to construct. Large molds are always challenging so we are excited to have this last big one completed. We will be building a part using this mold in the next week.  

Intern Projects
Our engineering intern Ryan Stube has brought strong hands-on skills and fresh ideas to the DarkAero team in his first month. He has quickly gotten up to speed and has been a major help in the shop. Ryan has designed a set of seat cushions for the DarkAero 1 prototype and will begin constructing them in July. He has also jumped in on plug and mold construction and has been fabricating carbon fiber reinforcement brackets that will be used on the prototype. He has also been reviewing and editing our build instructions with a fresh set of eyes to confirm new builders can follow them. 

Flight Testing
As we get closer to completing the prototype DarkAero 1, we have started thinking about flight testing.  We had the opportunity to have two test pilots stop into our shop and take a look at our progress on the prototype. We had some good discussion and pulled together ideas on how to prepare for flight testing. 

Heading into July, we will be focusing on finishing our remaining molds and gearing up for EAA AirVenture. We are very excited to share our progress on the airplane with everyone and hope to see you all at our booth in the Innovation Showcase. We will be sending out more details about our AirVenture booth in the next couple weeks so stay tuned.