Another finish-up task is done – installing LED nav/strobe lights on the wingtips. It was an easy job, simply installing the light mounts and connecting the lights themselves to wiring runs from the wing conduits.
All lights in action…the Mighty RV is ready for the night show at Airventure.
I started back to work this week for The Man…a different Man, and this one pays better!
It’s been awhile since the engine has been turned over and since the first start is approaching, it’s time to pre-oil the engine. Superior’s manual says that you can do that by either applying oil at 35 PSI into one of the lubrication galley ports on the front of the engine, or by cranking it with the starter until the oil pressure sensor shows 20 PSI. I chose to do the latter as it’s less mess and is also a good test of the G3x. I loosened slightly the oil pressure line AN fitting at the sensor end so air could escape. Made a little mess when the pressure came up, but was easily cleaned.
A video is worth a thousand words and there’s not much else to say anyway.
Big thanks for Mike Henning and Bob DiMeo for their help!
Lots of little wrap-up tasks remain…this weekend I installed engine sensors.
Here are the PMag connection, oil temperature, current shunt, manifold/fuel/oil pressure and fuel flow sensors all wired…
CHT and EGT probes wired on cylinders 2 and 4…
…and the same on cylinders 1 and 3.
I’ve been putting off safety-wiring the prop bolts ’cause it’s a reall pain in the ass.
…but now it’s done, and as a treat to myself I installed the spinner!
I found that all the wiring I’d run between the instrument panel and cockpit center section just wasn’t going to fit in the “tunnel” that covers up wiring, brake lines (for nosedragger RVs) and fuel lines running from the firewall and instrument panel to the fuselage center section. I had to modify the tunnel cover to relieve the 90-degree angle at its forward end and so create more room for wiring.
This bit of aluminum turns the tunnel’s 90-degree bend into two 45-degree bends and creates more room for wire.
Another picture? Sure!
That solved one problem in this area, but I still had another one – as I ran wiring from the tunnel to the center section I forgot to leave room behind the fuel selector for the J-shaped tube that connects it to the fuel filter/pump assembly. Oops.
The solution was to fabricate a bracket that moves the pump/filter up and forward enough to accommodate an L-shaped fuel line that doesn’t interfere with the wire bundles behind it.
The bracket attaches to the existing pump mounting holes in the tunnel cover. This created a challenging fuel line run from the pump outlet to the firewall but Tom Swearingen at TS Flightlines solved the problem with a well-crafted flexible fuel line with a 90-degree fitting on one end.
The end result – a tunnel that fits nicely in the fuselage and a pump/filter that connects nicely to the fuel selector.
Here’s a picture
Here’s another picture
And another picture
And finally, one more picture.
What? Another picture?
My wife is awesome. And she rivets like a pro.
We finished riveting the turtledeck…well, almost. There are three rivets left on each side that are gonna be a beeyotch to get, but that’s a problem to be solved tomorrow.
Looks good, doesn’t it? It was all Ellen.
We clecoed the baggage bulkhead in place because we could, and it looks cool. Plus, it helps keep dirt and dust out of the tailcone.
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.
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.
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.
And now Elevator Trim shows on the PFD…even more cool!
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.
One of the cool things about this stage of the project is that after a few hours of wiring I can turn on some part of the RV’s avionics and see it work.
For instance, I’ve had these Oplite 6 LED lights for several years now and finally got them wired up to the Garmin GAD-27 as instrument panel lights, so they’re controllable by a dimmer on the panel. These lights are really rugged and when driven by one of the GAD-27’s PWM lighting controllers, they’re dead quiet too – no hash on the radio like I’ve encountered with some other dimmers. Very cool.
I’ve also had Whelen LED nav/strobe lights sitting around for a few years, waiting for installation. The tail nav/strobe is finally wired through to the cockpit, and here’s some video to show how damn bright they are…low current draw too, and no need for a heavy strobe pack like older nav/strobe lighting systems.
Next on the list was wiring the flap motor, but I need some hardware to fabricate a mounting bracket. So, I jumped ahead to wiring the Advanced Flight Systems Angle-of-Attack (AoA) system. This is the only “legacy” avionics system on the airplane, as Advanced doesn’t sell it anymore. I hope it doesn’t fail.
For those of you who aren’t into aerodynamics, AoA is the angle at which the wing meets oncoming air, thus generating lift. If AoA exceeds a certain value, the wing stalls and lift is drastically reduced – so you can see why knowing AoA might be important for staying in the air. If you’re really into the concept, watch this video.
Everything lights up, and the self-test lady says the system is working…
Of course with all the gee-whiz stuff lit up, I had to take a picture. Enjoy!
I’ve been checking off some smaller tasks from my to-do list, one of which is figuring out where to mount the Pilot and Co-Pilot headset jacks. I didn’t want them hanging from the panel, so I put them on the cover plates in front of the wing spar bulkhead.
These covers are sold by Aircraft Spruce, and they worked really well.
Sometimes all those little individual tasks you’re churning on, come together in a moment of progress. Tonight was one of those nights – the battery contactor and avionics relay switches are now active, and the main and avionics busses are connected. It’s time to flip a few switches…
Lots more wiring to do, but motivation is high.
