A small appearance upgrade to a Skyhawk
The flight school I work at recently acquired a new (new to us) 172, an “M” model. She is in good shape, strong engine, adequate panel for a trainer. However, her interior is still stuck in the 70’s. When we got her in the hangar, we performed an in depth inspection before placing her in-service. She needed some plastics and some odds and ends which we placed on order. The big thing and the subject of this post was the ratty carpet. When we pulled the carpet out, it was a greenish color, typical of the 70’s. The color was not really the issue here, The problem was it was old, stinky, and just plain worn out as you can see from the pics below.
After the inspection and starting to button everything back up, we decided to change out the carpet and install a rubber flooring, using the old carpet as a template. We hired this job out to a local company who has done this same flooring on a couple of our aircraft in the past. The crew showed up and immediately started measuring the old carpet and laying out the basic shape. It was interesting to watch them work and seeing the project unfold. The flooring was soon cut and they made a backing to the rubber mat, that was then sewn into the flooring. The edges also got a treatment of an edge strip to keep the fraying and edge wear to a minimum.
The finished product looks a hundred times better than the carpet and is no-doubt more durable. The new rubber flooring is a 2-piece mat that extends from the cockpit decking under the rudder pedals all the way back to the baggage compartment. This type of flooring is perfect for a training aircraft or one that gets a lot of use. No more worries about dirty carpet and the associated problems with the old carpet. A small side note, the airplane smells a little better as well. I believe that this upgrade increased the value of the aircraft, especially in the “red hot” Skyhawk market that we are now experiencing. I expect this flooring to last at least 20-30 years. We could not be more pleased with how it turned out!
