Buttoning up the turtledeck

The tailcone avionics and electrical wiring are done and I really want to rivet the fuselage “turtledeck” skin – the one behind the cockpit. But I also don’t want to dive back there to fix wiring problems once it’s in place.

I’ve smoke-checked the ELT’s RS-232 data connection to the GTN-650, the tail nav/strobe light and even the elevator trim servo. But the last bit to be checked is the servo’s position indicator and the only way to know for sure is to configure the G3x Touch display to read and display position indicator signals. So that’s what I did.

G3x Pitch Trim 1

Configuring the Touch was a lot easier than I feared. All that’s required is to move the trim servo to full up, center, and full down and tell the display when the servo is positioned at each point.

G3x Pitch Trim 2

The Touch calibration page reads voltage coming from the position indicator and displays a gauge preview…very cool. That’s a good confirmation that the tailcone wiring is fully functional.

G3x Pitch Trim 3

And now Elevator Trim shows on the PFD…even more cool!

Turtledeck ready for riveting

A few more minutes and the turtledeck is clecoed into place for the last time and we’re ready to break out the rivet gun and bucking bars.