EAA Chapter 534 Up to Its Usual Good
On 14 October 2023, Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 534 members and a number of local youths gathered in the Chapter’s hangar on Florida’s Leesburg International Airport (LEE) for purpose of seeing to an unusual and ambitious entrepreneurial undertaking.
The assembled folk were packaging parts for EZ-UP Inspection Cover kits—constituents of an order for three-hundred new inspection covers placed by an aviation wholesaler to which the Chapter provides the product.
Designed to be used on fabric-covered Experimental and Light-Sport Aircraft (LSA), EZ-UP covers occasion an elegant solution to the incongruities of riveted inspection covers and airplanes skinned with doped fabric.
As aircraft owners grow increasingly frustrated with the tedious business of removing riveted inspection covers from, or installing such on, fabric-covered airplanes, they turn in ever-larger numbers to EZ-UP covers—clever devices by which fingers are spared the misery of being snapped by springs, fabric is spared the indignity of tearing, and paint is left unscratched.
Swapping out old-style riveted inspection covers on certified fabric-covered airplanes—per Advisory Circular ( AC ) 43.13.1 Acceptable Methods, Techniques and Practices-Aircraft Inspection and Repair—requires an A&P mechanic’s sign-off.
EZ-UP inspection covers were conceived of and developed by Marty Harris, whose fingers found themselves one-too-many-times at odds with the murderous springs characteristic of legacy, riveted inspection covers. Weary of bandaging his digits and touching up his aircrafts’ liveries, Mr. Harris—who sits on EAA Chapter 534’s board of directors and is eminently active in Squadron 534, the Chapter’s youth program—graciously donated the rights to his EZ-UP Inspection Cover to EAA Chapter 534. The monies raised by sales of the contraptions helps the Chapter fund Squadron 534.
EAA Chapter 534 is a 501 (C ) 3 non-profit organization.
The inspection cover kits are packaged by Squadron 534 youth members supervised by the Chapter’s adult members.
EZ-UP inspection covers are available in two iterations: the traditional domed type and a flatter, recessed-style cover. Both are shipped ready to prep for painting.
While EZ-UP inspection covers comprise conventional high-tension springs, they omit rivets, instead utilizing stainless steel screws, washers, and a locking-nut attached to subject spring.
For two trouble-free years, aerobatic legend Patty Wagstaff has beta-tested EZ-UP inspection covers on her ACA Super Decathlon. The resilience with which EZ-UP covers have endured the stresses inherent Ms. in Wagstaff’s flight school speaks to the soundness of the product’s design and the durability of its construction.
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