Spatial intelligence is not my strong suit

ArrowFlyer86

ArrowFlyer86

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A Bruce's custom cover came with my plane, but since I hangar it I never used it. But I'm planning to park it out side during a couple upcoming trips so I tried getting it on today.

Short story: I can't, for the love of God figure out how it's supposed to fit. It has cutouts and bulges that I can't tell what they're for. And even the best orientations I can come up with look wrong. I'm wondering if it's even for my airplane! Any tips on how it should be oriented?

Hate to ask cause it should be obvious but I spent 30 minutes this afternoon twisting and turning it every direction trying to make it make sense. No dice.

This is the best I could get it, and it's not even close to normal looking lol.
PXL_20250702_232011967.jpg
I figured the Velcro should go around the adf antenna here, cause there's no other obvious orientation for it.
PXL_20250702_231710435.jpg

The only thing that extrude from the aircraft on the side are the oat thermometer and the side pitot. No idea what the big antenna-esque cutout is for.
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Typically the Logo patch ends up low on the fuselage and upright, so that you can read it properly when you walk up to the airplane. I think the logo patch goes right above the step, and perhaps the Velcro is to have a way to access the door of the Arrow without taking the whole cover off?
 
In the top picture, it looks like you have the cover on backwards. The velcro slit allows the antenna to not get crushed by the cover and should be the rear end of the cover and the antenna should be at the crux of the slit. Is there part of the cover thats got a softer lining? If so, that is for the windshield and is the side towards the plane
 
Looking again, did you let them know about the placement of your OAT probe? I've never seen a Cherokee with that on the side. Here's a pic that seems similar to your cover. "hat" on the top is for the OAT probe in the top center of the windshield and pocket for the side pitot.
Screenshot 2025-07-03 at 7.08.53 AM.png
 
When covered a PA-28, the tell was the hole for the OAT pickup. Then you only had to tell which side of the cover was supposed to be the inside versus the exterior. Any lettering on the canvas would do that for you. Then get the straps under the fuselage. Easy-peasy. Ok, now cue the 20kt wind…

-Skip
 
Yeah looks like you need to flip it 180 degrees. The picture Hang4 posted shows that standard piper location for the OAT thermometer on the windscreen. They are kind of a pain; on mine once I got it on, I labeled each edge for "port, starboard, fore, aft, and in & out", which makes it a lot easier next time. I rarely use it because it's heavy, bulky and kind of a PITA.
 
I had a Bruce 's cover for my Warrior. The Velcro is so you can get in the door without having to remove the whole cover. It looks like you need to rotate the whole thing 90 deg clockwise, as viewed from above. It should have straps that go under the belly.

If I had to guess, your ADF antenna is the problem and is getting in the way. I imagine they would include a cutout for that if they knew about it. I did not have one, so no need for a cutout.

On second look, I can't quite tell, but the Velcro opening may be positioned to go around the ADF antenna and then down the door, allowing both antenna and door access. Still rotating it 90 deg from how you have it. That label should be at the back, behind the right wing, and horizontal (i.e. readable in normal orientation).
 
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I never had the through the windshiel OAT on my PA28, mine was a stud on the pilot side fuselage. I would never assume all are the same location.
 
Headed to the hangar in a little bit to try out the suggestions here, thank you! I'll let you know how it goes (or I won't if I'm too embarrassed to admit I was bested by a piece of fabric)
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Headed to the hangar in a little bit to try out the suggestions here, thank you! I'll let you know how it goes (or I won't if I'm too embarrassed to admit I was bested by a piece of fabric)
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I consider Velcro to have moving parts, and I don’t mind if an inanimate object is smarter than me as long as it has moving parts.
 
MauleSkinner said:
I consider Velcro to have moving parts, and I don’t mind if an inanimate object is smarter than me as long as it has moving parts.
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I appreciate that philosophy, it helps my self esteem:)

Thanks all for the tips. I also pinged the former owner and he said the same thing (get Velcro over the door for access, get the Bruce's label horizontal -- and its on the RH side of the plane by the baggage door).

Magic. Now it fits!

Part of what was throwing me off is that the ram mount and antenna up top were added after the cover was created. It seemed unnatural to throw a cover (and tighten it) where it would stress the antenna. So I'm just going to make an incision in the cover so the antenna can poke through or something. Have to think about that. Again, probably an easy problem for someone handier than myself LoL.

Proof I finally overcame my special reasoning disability...

PXL_20250703_234752959.jpg
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PXL_20250703_234812494.jpg
 
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Does the floppy thing on the top just forward of the velcro seam have a hole in the top of it? Could that be for the Antenna? Looking the the second picture, closest to a top view.

Glad you got it figured out.

Also, if you use it outdoors, you want those belly straps TIGHT. Flapping around can do more damage than no cover at all.
 
Hang 4 said:
Does the floppy thing on the top just forward of the velcro seam have a hole in the top of it? Could that be for the Antenna? Looking the the second picture, closest to a top view.

Glad you got it figured out.
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The floppy thing of canvas on the top is where the old antenna used to be, but years ago I believe it got replaced by the antenna set further back over the rear pax seats (pictured here). So the floppy canvas piece is a bit of a relic for an antenna that isn't there anymore.

I think the solution is make a small modification to the canvas cover to create a cutout for the new antenna, while hopefully not destroying the cover I just figured out how to use 5 years after getting it! :D
PXL_20250704_002824288.jpg
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
I think the solution is make a small modification to the canvas cover to create a cutout for the new antenna, while hopefully not destroying the cover I just figured out how to use 5 years after getting it! :D
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Might be worth a call to Bruce’s to see what they’d charge to modify it.
 
glad you're getting it figured out!

"Lack of Spatial Intelligence"

I'm very strong in this area, but sometimes it can still be a struggle for me to get things like this to fit. You're not alone.

I remember a park ranger at Mesa Verde, a retired teacher, as I recall. He was talking about how folks have different areas of "intelligence"....and not in the way that people are dumb or smart, but more like a strength or maybe aptitude is a better term. He was talking about how it just leads to some folks naturally being able to do one job well, while other folks could do something else well. Natural division of labor in the culture, and all of that.....

I see it all the time. I look at architectural drawings all day, and I wish that management understood this concept. They keep hiring folks to work on my team or in similar roles that just don't have spatial intelligence. They're smart people but just struggle understanding 3-d from 2-d drawings. It's something I've been fairly good at my whole life and I gravitated into 3 years of drafting classes in high school and an AAS degree in Drafting and Design before going on with a mechanical engineering degree. But they keep hiring folks with random backgrounds (liberal arts backgrounds, etc) who have never shown an interest or an aptitude in things like this. They're all smart and a few can get it but many cannot.
 
Brad W said:
glad you're getting it figured out!

"Lack of Spatial Intelligence"

I'm very strong in this area, but sometimes it can still be a struggle for me to get things like this to fit. You're not alone.

I remember a park ranger at Mesa Verde, a retired teacher, as I recall. He was talking about how folks have different areas of "intelligence"....and not in the way that people are dumb or smart, but more like a strength or maybe aptitude is a better term. He was talking about how it just leads to some folks naturally being able to do one job well, while other folks could do something else well. Natural division of labor in the culture, and all of that.....

I see it all the time. I look at architectural drawings all day, and I wish that management understood this concept. They keep hiring folks to work on my team or in similar roles that just don't have spatial intelligence. They're smart people but just struggle understanding 3-d from 2-d drawings. It's something I've been fairly good at my whole life and I gravitated into 3 years of drafting classes in high school and an AAS degree in Drafting and Design before going on with a mechanical engineering degree. But they keep hiring folks with random backgrounds (liberal arts backgrounds, etc) who have never shown an interest or an aptitude in things like this. They're all smart and a few can get it but many cannot.
Click to expand...
My mom worked with a lady who owned an interior design business. Mom said she had “perfect pitch” with regard to colors, and could put combinations together that no one else would think of, and they’d look great in the space.

But she could never figure out how to calculate a 50% markup on stuff that she stocked for sale. Sometimes she’d use double the cost, sometimes she’d sell it for half the cost, but she almost never got a 50% markup.
 
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Brad W said:
He was talking about how folks have different areas of "intelligence"....and not in the way that people are dumb or smart, but more like a strength or maybe aptitude is a better term. He was talking about how it just leads to some folks naturally being able to do one job well, while other folks could do something else well. Natural division of labor in the culture, and all of that.....
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Amen to that. IMHO, career "success" is owed in no small part to being able to figure out what your particular strength is and pick your challenges accordingly.

I remember taking an aptitude test in early high school that judged several areas and I recall my spatial reasoning score put me in the bottom 10% of students. Had I worked at this skill I'm sure I could have improved it a bit, but I'm fairly confident my marginal return on investment in building that skill would have been pitiful compared to someone with a natural inclination and interest in it.

On a funny note, due to this natural "handicap" I'm terrible at jigsaw puzzles. And on a date with a girl she wanted to build a puzzle together at the bar; I started sweating pretty quickly. In the time it took her to put down like 50 pieces of the puzzle, I couldn't find 1 matching piece. There was no second date. I'm pretty sure she thought I was a few clowns short of a circus when I couldn't contribute anything -- perhaps it was a kind of a foreboding foreshadowing for what I'd offer in the relationship :p

But it's funny that I have a really hard time visualizing physical things oriented in different ways, but my mind can articulate nuanced detail necessary to build computer programs that crunch data (knowing which data has to go where, how dependencies will work, where the processing bottlenecks will be, etc). Neither skill is "better" than the other, they're just different.

MauleSkinner said:
My mom worked with a lady who owned an interior design business. Mom said she had “perfect pitch” with regard to colors, and could put combinations together that no one else would think of, and they’d look great in the space.

But she could never figure out how to calculate a 50% markup on stuff that she stocked for sale. Sometimes she’d use double the cost, sometimes she’d sell it for half the cost, but she almost never got a 50% markup.
Click to expand...
I tutored a girl in math in college who was like this. No matter how many times I told her that the algebra to solve these word problems is always the same -- she still just had a mental block and struggled like hell to do it.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Amen to that. IMHO, career "success" is owed in no small part to being able to figure out what your particular strength is and pick your challenges accordingly.

I remember taking an aptitude test in early high school that judged several areas and I recall my spatial reasoning score put me in the bottom 10% of students. Had I worked at this skill I'm sure I could have improved it a bit, but I'm fairly confident my marginal return on investment in building that skill would have been pitiful compared to someone with a natural inclination and interest in it.

On a funny note, due to this natural "handicap" I'm terrible at jigsaw puzzles. And on a date with a girl she wanted to build a puzzle together at the bar; I started sweating pretty quickly. In the time it took her to put down like 50 pieces of the puzzle, I couldn't find 1 matching piece. There was no second date. I'm pretty sure she thought I was a few clowns short of a circus when I couldn't contribute anything -- perhaps it was a kind of a foreboding foreshadowing for what I'd offer in the relationship :p

But it's funny that I have a really hard time visualizing physical things oriented in different ways, but my mind can articulate nuanced detail necessary to build computer programs that crunch data (knowing which data has to go where, how dependencies will work, where the processing bottlenecks will be, etc). Neither skill is "better" than the other, they're just different.


I tutored a girl in math in college who was like this. No matter how many times I told her that the algebra to solve these word problems is always the same -- she still just had a mental block and struggled like hell to do it.
Click to expand...
I worked in a lab right after college, mainly studying nitrogen use in corn. The professor could describe every chemical reaction within the plant, but simple mechanical tasks were impossible for him, and he was hopeless with computers. I was always amazed a guy so smart would be so flumoxed by machines, but i eventually figured out that for him, spatial reasoning was as opaque as the biology was to me.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
So I'm just going to make an incision in the cover so the antenna can poke through or something.
Click to expand...

MauleSkinner said:
Might be worth a call to Bruce’s to see what they’d charge to modify it.
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Mark it up, call Bruce and send it over.
As long as it stays with the aircraft originally purchased for, these small mods are done for free.
 
AV8R_87 said:
Mark it up, call Bruce and send it over.
As long as it stays with the aircraft originally purchased for, these small mods are done for free.
Click to expand...
good to know!
I was thinking I'd take it to a local canvas guy who normally works on stuff for boats. But getting free alterations is always nice!
 
MauleSkinner said:
My mom worked with a lady who owned an interior design business. Mom said she had “perfect pitch” with regard to colors, and could put combinations together that no one else would think of, and they’d look great in the space.

But she could never figure out how to calculate a 50% markup on stuff that she stocked for sale. Sometimes she’d use double the cost, sometimes she’d sell it for half the cost, but she almost never got a 50% markup.
Click to expand...
Mark up and discount can be confusing . A 100% markup can only be discounted 50% to break even on purchase price. No $ gain on time use of inventory stock cost, so actually a loss.
 
Southpaw said:
Mark up and discount can be confusing . A 100% markup can only be discounted 50% to break even on purchase price. No $ gain on time use of inventory stock cost, so actually a loss.
Click to expand...
She was only trying to mark up… the 50% was when she accused old it for half of cost.
 
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