Twisted: Week 76 - Air vent, static ports, rudder cable tubes

Hours to date: 782.0

I've had a quiet couple of weeks on the kit due to the extremely cold weather we've had - minus 4 at night and not much warmer during the day - which kept me out of the garage. Plus I spent 3 days at the LAA Electrics and Avionics courses.

The Electrics day was pretty intense and my brain turned to mush by mid afternoon.

The Avionics day was much more relaxed - discussing all the nice toys you can put in light aircraft these days.

I came away feeling much more confident about installing the electrics and I haven't changed my panel layout much at all - just moved the fuses away from the panel face. I will install a small fuse box behind the panel.

The NACA inlet is coming along well - still got some finishing to do to the inlet and I finally got around to bonding in the outlet cavity.

First off I put a water drain tube on the bottom of the cavity though.

As you can see it was 'clamps for Africa' on the bonding of the outlet cavity.

After that I installed the tubes that the rudder cables run in.

It was like trying to wrestle a snake working with these tubes. They've been coiled up for so many years that they do not want to lay flat. You've got to thread them in a small space in between the safety cell and fuselage. The starboard side was easier as I could help to feed it through with my hand inside the air vent hole.

I've just taped them in place for the moment. I'll install them properly when I bond on those fiberglass straps I made up recently.

Next up was installing the static ports. I got these from Aircraft Spruce and they are specifically designed for composite aircraft. (Pete uses gliding ones which I found too hard to get hold of). Pretty straight forward - just cut a hole and bond in with flock. The location of the ports I got from Pete and for your information is 1000mm forward of the leading edge of the tailplane and then 435mm down from the centreline of the fuselage (use a flexible ruler for that).

I've also got the transponder and radio antennas (aerials) to install - more about those in the next post.

Final pic is of my shiny new military style stick grip from Infinity. A nice bit of kit - I won't be using many of the buttons - most likely just the push to talk. I may put the radio frequency flip function on it if my radio supports it.

Also the observant amongst you will see that the control column is not the factory supplied one. Pete has had these made up (at great expense - don't ask!) and approved by the LAA as a mod. The two things that are different are the bearings at the bottom and the bracket for mounting the trim at the top. It does feel like a quality piece of kit now - I think it's important to have primary controls that feel just right and will stay that way without wearing out.

Once I've finished the NACA duct I'll start on installing the instrument panel.