A blog documenting the adventure of building a kit plane
I finished adding all the needed wires to the main electrical harness. Now, I can begin adding terminals to the wire ends, and for some of the connectors, putting the terminals into the connectors. I have to leave some connectors off until the harness is installed in the fuselage because …
One of my first new year’s resolutions is to complete the fuselage wiring so that I can start tacking on the fuselage skins. So, I spent most of New Year’s Day working on wiring and a few other small tasks. First, I finished off the install of the roll servo. …
Now that I had all the parts I needed, it was time to begin routing the fuel system through the center fuselage. I am deviating from the TAF instructions, the following is a summary of the changes: Relocating the fuel valve body to slightly below and behind the dash, remotely …
My special-order fuel selector valve from Andair arrived yesterday. I’m pretty impressed with the build quality, it certainly seems worth the price. I opted for a remote install version due to the solid fuel lines I’m running. The remote version comes with an extension bar and a u-joint. Now that …
I continued running the brake lines out to the left and right skins, just aft of the main gear channel. To help with installation, I temporarily attached the reinforcement plates that fit over the skin where the wing attaches, and then drilled 3/8” holes in the reinforcement plates for bulkhead …
I temporarily assembled the throttle section so that I could place it on the center console to help with determining length of tubing needed. Putting together the parking brake valve was a bit of a pain – for some reason, the kit-provided park valve is BPST threaded, whereas the fittings …
I mentioned in an earlier post that I decided to go with hard lines for fuel and brake lines. There are definitely a few challenges to accomplish this, since the kit was designed to use rubber tubing , so routing is a little tricky. I’m using 3003 Aluminum Versa-tube in …
On Sunday I continued running wires for the fuselage electronics, in particular the autopilot servos and the magnetometer. I also gave some thought about how to secure the wires and created some small brackets so that I could use cushioned clamps inside the center tunnel. The brackets are made from …
I began laying out the wires in the center console for the headsets. I’m using lacing cord, spaced every 12 inches, to tie together the wires into a bundle. I’ll do this for other groups of wires too. This is the first time I’ve used lacing cord, and it works …
With all the updates I posted yesterday, I forgot to mention that I also bought a pair of Tosten “Military Style” grips. They arrived in the mail yesterday, and they look and feel amazing! Very high quality finish, and the switches have a satisfying feel to them. I ordered two …
