Date:  02-10-2023

Number of Hours:  6

Manual Reference:  24

In the previous stick boot entry I addressed making a surround for the stick boot.

Lets go over the problem. Here is what we are protecting, the stick mechanism. Yes the armrest goes on and that helps cover some of this, but look at the unprotected area at the stick!  The point is that if nothing is done one day I WILL drop an object in there, in flight, probably a pencil, and the controls WILL jam. It will be at the worst possible time. The only way to make sure I never drop something in there is to cover it.

Attempt #1. The leather boot.

But the leather is too thick and I can’t do it up! We used velcro to secure it inside the opening. That’s another problem, its interfering with the stick movement!

With the cover that I previously documented in place you can see the brief is filled. BUT as I can’t do it up it is still a pencil trap. As it impedes the stick movement lets call this a learning experience or an epic fail. We had a couple more goes at it so maybe we are on Attempt #3. We tried some other materials too. Now Attempt #5

Attempt #6

We have gone to using Velcro on my cutout cover flange. This is a winner as an attachment point. The material for the boot is a bit like very soft carpet or under-felt, but I’m getting ahead of the development story.

We first tried just a slot ‘velcroed’ on.

This kinda worked but there was still a chance of dropping a pencil down there, just a smaller chance than before. It was also challenging to get the boot material over that Infinity stick with all the buttons. A simple straight stick would have been a different solution.

This is the one from 3 pics ago where we have a sort of little sides going to the stick. You’d think we were there, but hang on….

We had a few more attempts…each got a fitting and a tweak…OK we are up to Attempt #9 at least! Probably nearer attempt #12 I’ve completely lost count.

WINNER!!!  Yes this configuration works. You need just the right amount of stick and opportunities to fold down around the stick with the velcro attachment. Think fedora hat. It seems not to be a problem moving the stick and is wrapped around its base.

If you have read this far you are making a boot too because it would be a mind numbing post for anyone else. Here are a few bonus pics of the winning design.

You can see we have velcro on one side of the stick opening but not the other. The material is so woolly that it works a bit like the hook of the hook and loop. The thing is that it would get too thick with velcro on both halves. This way you can roll it up a little and get a nice tight fit around the stick base.

With all these pics, I’m sure you will do it in one try and probably some other way too! I hope this helps your processes.