How do you tall guys do it?

[Turbo 162]

I am 5'11", and have a hard time squeezing myself into the Avid C's confined cockpit.  It seems my legs are too long, as my knees are inches from the top of the stick, and the rudder pedals with toebrakes contort my feet to the point where my lower legs cramp up.  This is disconcerting to say the least, especially when contemplating an imminent landing!  My slingseat is all the way back.  So, you guys that are as tall as me or taller:  how do you do it?  Is the Mark-4 cockpit any bigger?  My bird doesn't seem to want to fly well with feet off of the rudder pedals.

So you 6'-plus guys:  how do you deal with this limitation?  Or is this airplane only for shorties?

[Willja67 144]

I am 5'11", and have a hard time squeezing myself into the Avid C's confined cockpit.  It seems my legs are too long, as my knees are inches from the top of the stick, and the rudder pedals with toebrakes contort my feet to the point where my lower legs cramp up.  This is disconcerting to say the least, especially when contemplating an imminent landing!  My slingseat is all the way back.  So, you guys that are as tall as me or taller:  how do you do it?  Is the Mark-4 cockpit any bigger?  My bird doesn't seem to want to fly well with feet off of the rudder pedals.

So you 6'-plus guys:  how do you deal with this limitation?  Or is this airplane only for shorties?

 

At least on the rudder pedals i have a solution.  Should be fairly cheap and easy to execute. 

I'm 6'1" and have size 13 shoes.  As you can see from the pic there's no way to get the rudder without pushing the brakes without uncomfortable contortions that I consider too dangerous to consider flying. Just too hard to correctly use rudder and brakes on a tricky landing.  

Ive read the comment multiple times about tilting the brake pedal back and my solution accomplishes that in addition to improving the brake pedal/ master cylinder geometry. 

The above piece of aluminum is for another plane but gives the idea perfectly. as you can see it parallels the bottom of your foot so you're pushing on the rudder and not the brake. It also gives significantly more mechanical advantage when activating the master cylinders. Matco recommends no less that 2.5 to 1. The stock setup on my KF1 is roughly 2 to 1. Not shown on this piece of aluminum is an arm that will extend to the master cylinder. 

So I'll kill 2 birds with 1 stone.  I don't have the seat or floor boards in my plane right now so i haven't drawn up the final design yet. But I think this ought to appeal to the minimalists like Allen out there. A few bucks for the aluminum,  and a piece of steel tube to act as a axel, some washers and a cotter pin or 2 and some time cutting and shaping.

 

Edit:

I never ran the engine before i tore the plane down but the previous owner said the brakes would only hold the plane to 75% throttle. So I'm hoping for better than that with these new pedals. 

Edited 1 Sep 2019 by Willja67

[Turbo 162]

With the stock setup, I can hold the plane stopped to about 4000 rpm, enough, I think, for a decent mag check.  Following Fred and RFPhntmfxr's thoughts, I am inclined to remove the toe brakes entirely, actuate a single master cylinder remotely with a bicycle's Bowden cable and brake lever on a highly curved stick, which would move the top of the stick back towards me, so I could still swing my leg over it for entry & exit.  Then I would cut the two rudder interconnect tubes and re-weld them together with the pilot's side pedals (minus brakes) clocked forward to give the same firewall clearance on both sides.  Will that buy me enough footroom?  I don't know.  Will the lost ability to use differential braking for sharp turns on the ground be a problem?  Also don't know.  Will that lost capability deprive me of a way to escape an impending groundloop?  I doubt it.  There's quite a discussion going on in another thread, but I know that some of the guys are not shorties, so thought I'd ping y'all for ideas.

P.S. that looks like a good idea.  How about headroom?  New slingseat with less padding?

Edited 1 Sep 2019 by Turbo

[Willja67 144]

The guy i bought the plane from was a good 6 inches shorter than me but had the same inseam length in his pants. Ive got most of my height in my torso so i might not have to pull my knees up as much as you do. But my head is mighty close to the roof. I smacked my head real hard once in a DA-40 when we hit an unexpected downdraft. And i think my head is closer to the ceiling in the kitfox. A downdraft could well knock me out cold. Ive only barely contemplated raising the ceiling. Might be a necessity. I'll have to make that decision after the new sling seat is in.

[Turbo 162]

At least your headset will provide some protection!  I take it you're still (re)building, and have not sat in the slingseat for two hours straight flying - yet.  It's right about at 2 hrs that my lower legs cramp up!  UGGH!  That's right about time to land and re-fuel anyway.

[Bandit 286]

Easy fix.