Over the last couple of weeks decided to take a break from the ailerons and start working on the left wing’s pitot line plumbing. I was considering two ways of doing this; per Van’s plans with a piece of aluminum tubing and some bulkhead fittings, or with the plastic lines and push-to-seal fittings that came with the SafeAir pitot-static plumbing kit. The fact that I’m installing a heated pitot actually made it impossible to use Van’s original design, since it only calls for a simple aluminum tube pitot connected to a bulkhead fitting. On the flip side, the heated pitot could melt the SafeAir plastic tubing. So…I came up with a hybrid approach.

The pitot tube end was easy. I just moved Van’s original bulkhead fitting from the wing underside to the wing rib just inboard of the pitot tube, then bent and flared a short piece of tubing to connect the pitot tube to the bulkhead fitting. This is to allow the pitot tube to be disconnected and removed for maintenance in the future via access from the outboard inspection hole. Although you can’t see it in the first picture, there’s an AN fitting hidden by the pitot mast.

Pitot-to-bulkhead connection

The other side of the bulkhead is attached to a piece of aluminum tubing that extends inboard under the aileron bellcrank and into the middle inspection bay…

Bulkhead-to-line connection

…and is connected there to an AN-to-1/4″ NPT fitting (available from GAHCo) onto which is threaded a SafeAir’s push-on connector. Plastic line is run inboard from there through the wing root. The short piece of aluminum tube acts as a heat sink, keeping the plastic tube from melting. And using the plastic line inboard will make it easier to route the line through the wing root area to the cockpit.

Aluminum-to-plastic connection

Why no bulkhead fitting at the aluminum tube’s inboard end? Pretty simple.