Twisted: Week 110 - Fuel Selector

Hours to date: 1124.0

The access panels on the lower fuse are now finished.

Both came out very well - practise makes perfect (well an improvement on last time anyway).

The airstream passing by should hardly know they are there.

Onto the fuel selector.

No expense spared here - top of the range Andair (Made in England). A beautiful piece of kit - and so it should be for £276.

I also bought a check valve from them (a one way valve) - and that was a whopping £62.40. This will be used in the return line for the fuel system.

I've located the fuel selector in roughly the same area as Pete does.

The French Twister has the fuel selector on the right-hand side of the cockpit area. This is a no-go for me as my oil cooler occupies that space. Also I will have a side pocket in that area - plus I don't like all the extra plumbing that is involved just to have the fuel selector in that place.

I've had to move my location forward from where Pete puts his due to the fact he has retractable gear and I have fixed gear. The fixed gear runs right across where he puts his fuel selector.

I've gone as close to the gear as I dare. The selector is easy for me to reach in the cockpit - although I will have to slacken off my shoulder straps to do so. No bad thing in my mind as changing the fuel should not be a duty taken lightly by the pilot.

The tricky part of installing this selector is that it is a flat plate but I am installing into an area which is all compound curves.

So how to get around that problem?

Simples.

I ground away the top layer of Kevlar on the cell and all the honeycomb in the area needed. Bevelling the edges down as I went to give a smooth transition.

This leaves just the bottom layer of Kevlar which is now flexible and so can be made flat with the selector and top face plate bolted together - thereby crushing the Kevlar layer to make it flat.

After putting release wax on everything and cutting out 2 layers of carbon I was ready to go.

Once this carbon is set hard it will make this area flat. Then I will add another 3 layers of carbon to the bottom of the cell in the same area - should be plenty strong enough.

I used flock to fill in the exposed honeycomb and make a smooth transition to the rest of the cell.

As you can see the selector is nowhere near my leg and can only be turned off by lifting the knob on the dial anyway so there is no danger of it being turned off by mistake. Also the rudder action is not one where you need to move your legs back and forth - just your ankles move the tops of your feet - so again this should not introduce any unwanted bumping of the fuel selector.