Baggage Doors

Would like to get some opinions about baggage doors..

It seems like most of the newer [rebuilt] Cubs these days have one or two bagge doors. Generally a small upper door for the upper shelf that can hold a few pounds of bulky gear. Plus the larger bottom baggage door that you can fit into as deep as your shoulder/arm-pit.

How handy is the large style lower door? Is there really a need for the upper door?

Both doors, or just one? If you had a choice of only one door would you choose the upper or lower?

With only an upper door (no lower door), that allows outside access to the upper baggage shelf, with a hole through the shelf floor, is there is enough room to reach your hand inside to slide anything forward that has slid to the back part of the extended baggage?

My pop has the extended baggage with only the small upper door. The floor of the shelf has a hinged panel so he can reach through and shove stuff forward as you mentioned. I/we find it very effective and usefull on its own.

I like the idea of the larger door as well, but it would have to be big enough to shove five gallon cans or moose quarters through to be to my liking. Also, I would like to have the lowest edge of the door flush with the floor of the baggage (if this is common or even possible, I don't know) so as to slide heavy items in or out without killing your back in an awkward lifting motion. Loading/unloading heavies into the backseat can be awkward enough.

joe

I have both upper and lower. The lower is nice, but I might leave it out at recover. For the upper you could use the old battery box access door. I have the less conventional side mounted upper door which I like. The old battery door and compartment though would more than suffice for me.

Does that muddy the waters a little. I guess the short of it is I like them okay, but for wheel and ski flying the ain't worth the cost. It really ain't hard to reach around to get into the extended lower baggage if no one's sittin' in the back seat. The upper area is nice (real nice) but one could get by useing the old access door (cover). I'd rather spend the money on a pod.

You can pictures of my doors in my gallery.

Mike

delete

Damn TJ,
Here I was thinkin' I need to put me a baggage door in so as to make things a little easier, but if an old fart like you don't need one I guess I can get buy using my gaff hook to pull things out of the back for now !!! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

skukum12 said:

My pop has the extended baggage with only the small upper door. The floor of the shelf has a hinged panel so he can reach through and shove stuff forward as you mentioned. I/we find it very effective and usefull on its own.
joe

Click to expand...

I have the same setup. I find it very handy.



I also have an easily removable rear seat rest, which makes it real easy to get stuff in and out. I can sleep comfortably inside the plane with the rear seat back out.

harness reels....

John,
Where did you get those little bitty harness reels?

Mike

John,

That baggage compartment is awesome. Who's STC is it?

I'm in the middle of rebuilding my cub and am considering changing out the Atlee extended baggage for the real deal like you have. Would you be available to show me your cub if I jump in the Cirrus and fly up from Madison for a visit with my digital camera. Looks like you got a lot of mods that I might want to do.

Very nice looking plane.

Jeff

Heck, I want one of those "interior cleaner" thingy's for my plane. Sure beats my crippled butt trying to get in there and doing it!!

Keith

John,

I like the LARGE door in the upper shelf floor.....on big tires how far in can you reach [access through the upper door, shelf floor]? Can reach something that has slid to the back of the lower extended baggage?

I'm contemplating the huge baggage, but when stuff slides all the way back I could see where you'd have a heck-of-time getting it out w/o a door....other than crawling all the way back in the baggage compartment.

Does your set-up have 2 exterior doors, upper and lower? Or just the upper one?

I like charley's at crosswinds. The large upper and maybe the smaller one behind the back seat is about perfect.

The fuselage is an Airframes, Inc wide body so we built the interior from scratch using their STC. All of the interior panels were fabricated from sheet metal and then powder coated. Jim Drometer and I prototyped all of this stuff with cardboard and scraps of the materials that we used and he and his then assistant Sam fabricated it all. He has a CNC milling machine that he loves to use so he made many custom parts. They both seemed to enjoy the process a lot.

I do not have the lower baggage door. I have not needed it. with the back seat out, which takes seconds, I can easily get stuff in and out. I can generally reach anything from one end or the other. When I am filling the plane, the light bulky stuff goes in the back and on the upper deck -- ten pound limit there. It has proved really useful.

The upper shelf and floor are made of mahogany marine plywood which is light, very pretty and after one year of constant use, still looks good. We were going to put skid plates on the floor boards behind the rudder pedals and brakes. We elected to wait for the wear patterns to develop but none have in the first 200 hours. It has many coats of poly urethane and a lot of sanding. We cut the hole and used a piano hinge to make the trap door. The whole thing works great.

I have a cargo net that one of my buddies gave me from his Tahoe. It helps a lot to keep smaller loads from moving around.

The cargo area cleaner comes in real handy most of the time. She gets real cranky if my buddies come by and talk too much. She is better programed to transmit than to receive. She is real popular around the airport.