Category Archives: Mid Fuselage

Left Side Console

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Time: 6 Hours

I wanted to start the work on the pilot armrest/consoles that will house the throttle quadrant and switches. This is a modification and not the stock plan. Before I started this I had a few items to finish up. I needed to put the side panel in that covers up the battery area. Before I did that I drilled for a 6 place fuse block that will get mounted to this panel. I decided to use fuses for the seat warmers based on the advise of Vertical Power due to the flucuation power needs. I had to remove the rudder pedals to get it in.  

   I also drilled and screwed down the ELT speaker to the cross member behind the instrument panel.  
 I mounted the second Dynon hub in the right side floor bay.  

   So now on to the throttle quadrant and the attachment peices. The plan is to attach the throttle quadrant to the spar cap that runs along the sides vertically. I needed to cut a couple of peices of 1.5″ angle to make a mounting brackets. I figured out the outside edge distance for the throttle and came up 1/4″ space from the cap to the inside of the angle. I used a 1/4″ drill bit as a spacer so I could match drill the angles to the cap.  
    
 I then clamped the throttle to the angles. I won’t drill this until I make the top shelf and figure out the exact placement.  

   Glenn was nice enough to let me use his templates for his consoles to make the cuts much easier.  
    
 I made a angle out of sheet to rivet to the side panel of the instrument panel to attach the side console to.  

 I took me better part of an hour to file down the top for a good fit. Once I was happy I laid out a rivet line for screws to attach it to the side and top and drilled the top. Using the holes I just drilled I match drilled the side angle and top angle supports. I then clecko’ed the top in place and checked the fit.  

   I didn’t trim up the outside edge yet as I will wait for the side skin for this console so that I can make a nice clean corner. To attach the side I need a angle that I will rivet to the top and have nutplates to screw the side to.  
   I countersunk the rivet holes in the angles and dimpled the top skin for flush rivets. I figured out the exact placement of the throttle quadrant and clamped it in place. I marked two holes to line up the holes in the center of the attach angles. I then drilled them with a #30 then a #12 for AN-3 bolts. I removed the angles and drilled and countersunk for nutplates. I riveted nutplates to the forward and side angle for #8 screws. I then laid out the side panel on my sheet and cut it out on the band saw. I cleaned up all the edges so I wouldn’t scratch anything in the cockpit as I knew I would be moving it in and out a lot as I fine tuned the size. I can up with a screw hole lay out and marked them for drilling, starting with a #30 bit so I could match drill the angles.  

   After drilling the holes in the side skin I carefully held it in place along the console and started match drilling and starting from the front and working my way aft. I made a bend to match the top as it gets narrower going aft. I also made a bend at the aft end to match the existing structure. I measured the placement of the friction lock at the bottom of the throttle quadrant and drilled a hole for it.  
    
   I’m real happy with how the left side turned out! I’m looking forward to filling up the top section with switches and controls. 

COM Antenna’s & ARINC Shelf

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Time: 4 Hours

I made it out to the hangar today for a few hours to work on the COM antenna placement. I wanted to jump ahead to this task so I could know where exactly I could place the shelf I would make for housing the ARINC module. This module will convert signals from a certified GPS, like the Garmin 650, to the Dynon Skyview system. I had an idea of where I wanted to place this shelf inside the bay where the #1 COM antennae will be. So decided to start with the shelf. My idea was to keep it as low as possible to the floor so as to remain clear if the rudder cables. I planned on using some 1/2″ x 3/4″ angle with a piece of 0.040″ sheet on top with the ends bent down to give me a place to rivet it to the angles. I gave myself extra space with the size to make sure I had the correct spacing for the attachment hardware. I drilled all the river holes and clecko’ed it all together. 

    
    
   I moved onto the COM antenna’s for the two COM radios. I had bought these two antennas at Oshkosh this year.  I was lucky enough to have my buddy Glenn put his wings on his RV-8 so that we could finalize the exact placement of our antennas so that they didn’t interfere with the flaps.  Since I had that new measurement I laid out where I want to drill the holes.  I used my step bit and drilled a half inch hole for both antennas. I used the rivet lines of the bottom skin to create a centerline that I could use as a reference to make sure the antennas were straight with the centerline of the fuselage. I made a mark on the leading edge and trailing edge of the antenna base to line up with the line I put on the skin. With the antenna in place him in line I drilled the four holes for the attachment hardware.  I clecko’ed the antennas in place after all the holes were drilled. 
    
   I decided to take a break from these tasks and work on a little bit of electrical but I have been thinking about. I needed to cut the Skyview network cable that runs from the ADHARS to the network hub in the avionics Bay. I made the measurements and made the cut. This was my first time working with D-Sub connectors. Over all I was happy with how the first one came out and how it looked.  
    
    
    
    
    
    
 

Control Sticks & Smoke Oil Fill

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Time: 6 Hours

Today I worked on installing, at least temporarily, the pilot and passengers control stick grips. I purchased the grips from Tosten Manufacturing after looking at them at AirVenture 2015. First task was to come up with a rough height for the pilots control stick as the original part is too long. After coming up with the link I took the stick out of the aircraft and cut it with a hacksaw. With the stick cut I marked a spot at the lower section to drill a hole for the wires to exit.  

 To make it easier to fish the wires down through I put some shrink tube on the end of the wires   
   once I had the hole drilled in the bottom of the control stick I was able to slide the wires through and do some measurements to see how the grip fit. It took me several tries to get the length just perfect so that it cleared the bottom of the instrument panel and crossmember. 
    
 A nice feature of these grips is the collar that the grip slides into. This gets held in place with a drilled hole and cap head screw which also holds the grip into position. This collar also allow for the grip to be twisted and raise up around 3/8″ as required to get a perfect fit to your hand position. I drilled a 3/16″ hole 1/2″ from the top and inserted the screw and jam but to hold it for now.  

 I basically repeated these steps for the passenger grip with an addition to putting the pilot seat back in place which is the limiting factor to the height as you don’t want the grip to hit the back of the seat when pushed full forward.  

    
 The grips turned out awesome and I love the feel. The pilot grip has a trigger that will be the push to talk button. The left lower thumb button will be for smoke. The hat in the center is for trim and the toggle to the left for flaps and to the right will be for COM 1/2 switching. There is a pinky button below the trigger for autopilot touch steering. The passenger will just have trim and the push to talk. From there I moved to another modification that I’m follow my buddy on. The oil tank obviously needs to be filled with oil at some point. The first way is to reach in and pour oil in via a cap on the tank. The next and better way is to use an external full kit that I bought from smokingairplanes.com. It allow you to open a cap like a fuel cap and pour oil in and not mess with the possibility of making a mess inside you airplane. Glenn showed me a photo of a P-51 Mustang and their center fuel tank fill port on the left side just under the canopy.  

 So we are gonna put ours just like that! Glenn had a side canopy fiberglass skirt from his last project so I used it to mark the location that it will lie on the fuselage.  

 From there I made the mark for the location of the 2″ hole. Glenn helped me hold the skin on the drill press to make the cut with the fly cutter. I used the support ring to mark all six holes for the screws.  

   I drilled the center of the holes with a #40 drill bit followed by a #11 for the #10 screw.  

 After all six holes were drilled I screwed the fill cap into position.  

    
   I will eventually paint the cap red to give that P-51 look. I’m really done with the items in the back except for a couple of wiring harnesses and those will arrive on Monday. So I started cleaning up a few items that I had on hold. First was to trim the cabin heat cable to its final size. I wanted to drill the tee for the smoke tank system that goes through the firewall. This tee will direct oil to both exhaust pipes. I drilled the 9/16″ hole and put the tee in place.  
 With the fitting in place I could cut the cabin heat cable to the correct length so it doesn’t interfere with the tee or my rudder pedals.  

   One last item was to cut the fuel boost pump wired and crimp some ring terminals on the ends. I then screwed them to a two place terminal block. This will allow me to unscrew them in the future for easy replacement as needed.  
Thats where I called it a weekend and will get back at it tomorrow when my parts arrive. 

  

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Smoke Tank & Antennas

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Time: 4 Hours

I had a couple hours in the shop before needing to head to Midway airport to pick up my girl :-). I’m still working on items that need to be done before riveting the top skin of the tail. One item is the smoke tank in the aft baggage area. The floor of the baggage area will be permanently riveted in place so I will need to put nut plates under the floor to attach the tank. I made some measurements to see where the best place was for it.  

I then measured for four holes and drilled them to a #30 size hole to start with. Then I match drilled  it through the floor. 

 
 Once I had the holes match drilled I worked on stiffening up the floor to support the tank weight. I used some .032 sheet to make some doublers.  

   I then figured out where the high pressure line would exit the floor and drilled a 1 1/8″ hole and put a grommet in. With the floor in place I test fit the tank and connections.  
    
 I cleaned up the doublers and primed them for riveting. I used the back rivet set to get all the rivets and nutplates.  

   Next up was to work on two of the antanaes that are located under the airplane. One is in the tail area that I need to do before riveting the top skin the other  is more forward but identical so I wanted to work on both. These will be for the transponder and the ADS-B radios. 

  I used the antanae to mark holes on some scrap .032 sheet that would become a doubler. I marked the center of the three holes and drilled a #30 hole in each to use as a match drill to the skin. I then placed the doublers in place to drill down through the doubler and skin.  
   With those holes I used the step drill bit to open the holes to the final sizes. I then cleaned up the doublers and primed them.  
    
 When the primer was done I put the antanaes in place and tightened them down with the torque wrench.  

    
    
   In between the primer coats I put the panel eyeball lights in place. These are red LED’s that will be on a dimmer and shine across to the side panels for night flying.  
   That’s where I called it a day to head and pickup my girl. 

COM Antanae Cables

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Time: 2 Hours

I started the the time in the shop priming and riveting the parts together that made up the transponder bracket and put it into position. I had received a package from Aircraft Spruce the other day which included several different parts including the ones I needed for the antennas. 

 The parts I would be using is RG – 400 cable (similar to cable tv wire but aircraft grade and has a braided center core vs a solid wire) and crimp in BNC connectors. I watched several videos, including SteinAir, on the process of making these cables. After feeling good about the process I went about making my first one. The BNC crimp ons have three parts, the connector, the crimp sleeve and the pin.  

 The goal is to remove two sections of the cable.  The first is down to the center wire so that you can crimp the pin on. The second is just down to the inner braided sheath for the ground.  

    
 I then grabbed my label printer and printed the cable identification on 3/8″ shrink tube. This is a cool device that allows me to print directly onto white shrink tube that had a 1:3 shrink ratio.  

 I also got to use my new coax head for the crimpers. I will only be using two of the slots for this job. First is the .068 for the little pin then the .213 for the sleeve.  

 I crimped the pin then slid the sleeve in place. The connector them slides on and under the braided wire. You push hard enough to feel a snap as the pins ridge catches on the connector. Slide the sleeve back to the connector and crimp.  Then check your crimp to check for a short between the pin and the shield.  

   I then figured out the final length needed for each cable and cut. I then put the cable in its place in the fuselage going through all of the snap bushings. I didn’t repeated the process of adding the connector on the final and as it’s now in place and not forgetting to put the label on this and before crimping.  I secured the cable alongside of the flexible conduit with zip ties and put the 90° adapter on the end that will connect to the actual antenna. I left plenty of cable in the back to connect to the radio’s when they get installed. 
    
    
 A new skill learned and feeling accomplished!