Floor Choices. AIP Source…

It is always amazing when you actually weigh every item that is inside an airplane.  It’s so easy to just say, who cares.  Just put it in…  The fact is when you count every item, you can really see how easy it is to load up the airplane with all sorts of extra none-sense.

I am being very conscious of weight on this project.  It’s not that I want to be a nutty extremest and throw the baby out with the bath water, but I want to have an understanding of how every choice affects the bottom line.  If it makes sense, weight addition is ok, but if its unnecessary, than it doesn’t belong.

The carpet that was removed from the Skywagon was a residential nylon carpet.  Besides being illegal and having no burn data, the damn stuff was super heavy weighing in at 10 lbs.

So the question is: What to replace it with???  If you spend any time perusing the boards, you will read all sorts of opinions.  This is too heavy, that is too light… This one makes it too loud, and that one wont provide enough protection.  Blah blah blah…  The funny thing is that most of these opinions are from people who just choose one option.  They never do any testing, or have any other experience other than what is in their airplane.

I guess I fall right there with the rest, and only know what I know.  But I do know this… I have been flying the Skywagon without any carpet on the floor.  In fact, I have been flying without any interior at all, and I can report that for me, at the temps I am flying, it is totally cool.  It’s not to cold, and it’s not to loud.  This is pretty liberating as I can do as little or as much as I want.

For the C170, I found a really cool product from AIP Source called Aerofloor DOT.  You order it per yard, and comes with the important burn data.  The floor I installed in the C170 weighed in at a paltry 3 lbs.  Of course this product was super thin and provided NO padding for protection, but with the kind of flying I was doing, it didn’t matter.

AIP Source tends to work with larger orders, and I believe supplies Cessna with the new floor in their new airplanes, but still sells to us little guys.  When I ordered for the C170, I found them to be cordial and very helpful.  Their website has good photos of the colors and patterns, so its easy to make a decision.  All that I had to do was discuss weight.

For the Skywagon, I have a bit more leeway with respect to weight, so the jury is out with which floor I am going to install…   The Lonseal is thicker and provides more padding (and sound deadening) but is a bit more than twice as heavy.

I’ll be mulling it over this next week before I place my order, but chances are I will go with the same as the C170 and order the Aerofloor DOT.   Keep it real light!