by Rynoth » Sat Mar 28, 2015 8:28 am
Bryan, I did sit in my plane (and I'm pretty big) with Clecoes and had no I'll effects. However 2 important points, one of which I'm not sure you can replicate. First, I slipped bolts (not clecoes) into the longeron splice plates between fore/aft fuselage, since this joint would take a lot of the weight. Second, my plane was not on the gear, instead it was on the floor with a piece of 4x4 wood across the middle of the forward fuselage (to keep the clecoes off the floor), so I was basically sitting over this wood, rather than the midpoint between the main gear and tailwheel.
That said, the seat sling is supported on 3 crossbars that fix to the side panels, so I'd think as long as the side panels and longerons are securely fixed it'd be fine to sit. The weakest point is probably the clecoed spar tunnel.