I’ve received a lot of requests for information regarding the interior finishes on our RV-10.  I’ve uploaded many pictures of our current RV-10 interior on this page. I will briefly explain how you can get similar results. Of note, we prepare all of the interior panels as we are building, but do not install them until the interior of the aircraft is painted. There is not a lot of paint that shows.

 Basically, you have to make patterns for the panels that you will then cover with your chosen fabric- be it upholstery fabric, leather, or ultraleather. We are using ultraleather and sheepskin in our new RV-10 build.

The panels you create can be from plastic or aluminum. The panels on the doors  and headliner shown here are from McMaster Carr.

https://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/131/4127/8734K22

In order to do the headliner panels, you must cut the patterns for them when the fuselage fiberglass shell is upside down – before installed on the fuselage. It is done is 2 pieces as you can see in the pictures. You need the 1/16″ polystyrene as is is flexible. On the RV-10 we are currently building, we opted to use the Aerosport headliner panels and center tunnel. Vic attached the headliner with screws on the pictured headliner. After many years it sagged in the back. When we recovered the panels last year, we added velcro to the area where it had sagged and now it looks good. For the new RV-10 we used the Aerosport center console and two fiberglass headliner panels from Aerosport as well.

For the doors, they also were done with the 1/16″ polystyrene on our current RV-10. Again they are in 2 pieces because of the shape of the door. Vic plans to use 1/16 aluminum on the current RV-10 due to convenience of pickup from Aircraft Spruce. You can see we use stainless screws to mount the panel to the door. They are discreet and not gaudy as some of the screw covers used in upholstery can be.

For the side panels, we use 3/32 Polystyrene from McMaster Carr.

https://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/131/4127/8734K24

 or sign material from Home Depot. The sign material is 1/4 ” thick. Depending on the location, many times we use our 1/4 super soundproofing on the back of the panel to push it away from the fuselage. Most of the panels stay in place without any screws or velcro.

I did one video on the front seat material. See below at 7:15. When I do the back seats purchased from Oregon Aero, I will do a video on the patterning and sewing techiques. One note. If you are purchasing the back seats from Oregon Aero, ask for the bottom seat to be straight across in front. For some reason they usually cut it out for a 5 point harness which no one uses in the back of the RV-10. It is easier to sew the straight edge.