The C-01417 Canopy Frame Close-Out hangs below the C-01418 Canopy Skin a significant length. The canopy may not close if instruments on the outboard top halves of the panel project too deeply forward of the panel. A builder with a professionally built panel ran into this issue.
The first step in determining if my instruments sit too deep is to temporarily place the canopy on the aircraft. Then print out to-scale outlines of the instruments and tape them in the precise locations using a flashlight to align the paper with the panel through the nutplate holes. Because the TruTrak ADI2 projects more than 6.5" beyond the panel, I'm specifically concerned about its depth. So I cut out the 2.25" square that represents its placement so I can place the ADI2 in the correct location when testing with the canopy down.
As is visible in this image with the canopy down, the ADI2 has a clear trajectory to the Canopy Frame Close-Out and it turns out that the former will prevent the latter from closing.
So I had to move the ADI2 even lower on the panel to clear the impinging Canopy Frame Close-Out. Because this then compressed the space available for the switches underneath the ADI2, I had to reorient the lower four switches to the horizontal to make space for their labels. Thus, my panel will now look like this.
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