Sunday, June 7, 2009

1,900 hours

This weekend, I passed 1,900 hours of actual work on the RV airplane project. Still a long way to go, but getting there.

One of the things I like about buying many of the wiring harnesses from SteinAir (the Dynon electronic information display and the Vertical Power system primarily), is that once you lay them in, it looks like someone did the wiring who knows what they're doing.

Today I finally got the last of the wiring runs to the aft fuselage area, which means I'm ready to rivet on the top aft skin, which will make it look more like a plane and less like a canoe.

The remaining task was to get the bracket built for the remote compass for the Dynon EFIS system. I used a strong piece of angle between gussets behind a bulkhead, made a mounting plate, and then cut some small tubing and filed them to an angle to create a pitch in the plate that matches the pitch forward of the Dynon instrumentin the panel (the panel is angled forward.)

Final check. Here's the pitch of the Dynon in the panel...



... and the pitch of the remote compass in the back of the plane...



I used a lot of Adel clamps to keep the wire from chafing on any part of the plane. I have a little cleaning up to do yet with some of the wires from the strobe power supply (on the left below). I have to figure out how to keep them from moving around but I think the only thing that can be used is tie wrap tied to an adhesive-backed tie-wrap anchor. They tend to become un stuck over time but I don't know what other option I have.

Here's the compartment ready to be buttoned up, which also means other than drilling a hole for the ELT antenna, and to do the actual riveting, I won't have to crawl back in there later.



And with all that in place, I put in the elevator push-rod tube for the final time.



In the panel, I finally drilled the holes -- using an Avery jig -- that attaches the backup airspeed indicator (and a bracket I bought from Van's). I fretted over this for the longest time. The airplane isn't parked level; it's off by perhaps .3 degrees. At the same time, I want the side of the airspeed indicator to be completely parallel with the side of the Dynon EFIS.

Since I cut the panel myself, there's a pretty good chance these instruments aren't all level; I just don't want them to look all not level. I took abut a half hour trying to get it perfect, but I didn't. It's cocked slightly to the left. The pointer is at 88 +/- vertical degrees instead of 90. But once I'm flying, and once the airspeed indicator is moving, I'm really not going to care much.



I hadn't realized up to now that I've got more work to do on fitting the back-up altimeter because it has notched portion by which you can set the barometric pressure. I'm not sure how to cut that notch perfectly.

Anyway, then I attached the static port tubing to the airspeed indicator.



I'm about ready to put the engine mount back on and if I can find an engine hoist to buy, I think we're about ready to mount the engine on this thing.

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