Posts Tagged static port
Miscellaneous Tasks Again (1/19/13)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Aft Fuselage, Center Fuselage, Construction, Fuselage on January 19, 2013
3.0 Hours –
I worked on a few more miscellaneous things today. First, I finished prepping the lower baggage bulkhead, including primer and paint.
Next, I installed some tubing that connects the two static ports together. There’s no real need to install this now, other than to close the system, preventing debris from getting into the ports. I placed a tee connection on the left side. Eventually, a tube will run from the tee to wherever my ADAHRS (air data and compass module) are located. However, for now, I just attached a short length of tubing and closed off the end with some duct tape to make sure nothing could get in.
After taking a short break, I returned to the plane and prepped and painted the aft baggage covers. At this point, I think I want to paint anything going into the plane before it gets riveted. Along that line, I also decided to start getting the inside of the fuselage ready for paint. My plan is to paint everything from the F-706 bulkhead forward to where the sub-panel will be. That should cover everything that is visible. The floor forward of the F-704 won’t get painted though, as that will be covered with carpet. Similarly, I won’t paint anything that will later be covered by a floor board or access panel. Less paint equals less weight!
Seat Belts and Static Ports (1/17/13)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Aft Fuselage, Center Fuselage, Construction, Fuselage on January 17, 2013
2.4 Hours –
I wanted to get several random tasks out-of-the-way today. The primary items on my list were the static ports and the lap belt anchor points. Neither of these really needed to be done now, but, why not?
I started by prepping the fuselage for installation of the static ports. Since I had already drilled the holes, all I had left to do was to scuff up the interior area surrounding the holes, and then clean the area well with some MEK. I repeated this process with the mating surfaces of the static ports.
With everything ready to go, I opened up one of my small sealant kits and mixed in the activator. I had forgotten how thick and sticky this stuff is. Fortunately, I remembered to wear a couple of layers of gloves so that I could easily remove the outer layer once they had some sealant on them. After mixing well, I put a thin layer of sealant on each static port (I placed the shank of a blind rivet in the opening of each port to make sure no sealant got into the hole), and then positioned them on the fuselage. To insure they stayed in position, I used a couple of big wood clamps.
I allowed the sealant to set for about an hour while I did other things, then I removed the clamps and used some MEK to clean up any sealant that got on the outside of the fuselage. Once cleaned-up, the ports were done. I’ll give them at least a day to cure before I try installing any of the plumbing, but they already seem pretty solid.
While I was waiting for the static ports to cure a bit, I moved on to another random task of making “platenuts” for the tie-down ring storage system. It sounds fancy, but it’s not! I’ll drill two holes in the forward baggage covers, then attach my homemade platenuts to the inside of the covers. The platenuts are tapped to accept the tie-downs, and it will make for a nice storage place for the tie-down rings when I don’t need them in the wings.
Next, I moved on to the lap belt attach points. The attach points on the Crow harnesses all have a diameter of about 1/2″. The attach points in the plane all use 1/4″ fasteners. There are a couple of options. I can either drill new holes in the harnesses, much like I did for the crotch strap, or I can press-in some washers that will act as a bushing. I opted to go with the washer method. Unfortunately, a standard washer was slightly to great in diameter to work as is, so I had to place a few washers on a long bolt, chuck the bolt in my drill press, and file down the washers. After a few minutes, I had a stack of washers that was close to the correct diameter. To get them into the harnesses, I used my pneumatic squeezer to press in a stack of three washers into each attach point. Once done, all of my attach points had nice 1/4″ openings.
Since I had the harnesses out, I also took a few minutes to torque the lap belt attach brackets in the fuselage. I placed one of the harness attach points into each set of brackets to ensure that the spacing was correct. Then, I torqued the bolts holding the attach points to the fuselage and marked them with some inspection lacquer.
My last task of the evening was to install my “EXPERIMENTAL” placard on the baggage bulkhead. I decided to do this now since the baggage bulkhead’s paint was dry and the bulkhead itself was nice and clean (no dust). The decal went on easy, and I managed to get it straight and centered on the first attempt. I was pretty happy to see the upper baggage bulkhead painted and placarded. I may have to hang it on the wall somewhere instead of storing it the wing-cradle where it will be out of sight.
Baggage Bulkheads Started (1/12/13)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Aft Fuselage, Center Fuselage, Construction, Fuselage on January 12, 2013
4.8 Hours –
I was hoping that I would be able to get the static ports installed today, but FedEx didn’t show up with my order from Van’s in time. The order had a couple of small sealant kits in it, one of which was going to be used for installing the static ports. Instead, I only made it as far as drilling the holes for the ports in the side skins. Since I’m using the SafeAir static ports, I had to change the location slightly from that on the plans. My distance from the longeron rivet line remained the same at 2″ below the line, but I had to more the hole forward about a half-inch to accommodate the large flange on the SafeAir ports. Instead of 11/16ths forward of the bulkhead rivet line, I placed them at 1.25″ forward. Hopefully, this won’t introduce any error in my instruments that can’t be calibrated out. Once the locations were marked, I drilled and deburred 1/4″ holes. Installation of the ports will have to wait until I have the top skins off again.
Since I wanted to keep working, rather than wait for my sealant, I clecoed the top skins back on. Right as I finished clecoing, FedEx showed up with the sealant. Since it took me about an hour to get the top skins back on, I decided to forge ahead, instead of taking the skins back off to install the static ports. On to the baggage bulkheads!
Before I could start working on the baggage bulkheads, I had to cleco in the aft baggage side covers and the baggage floors. With these in place, the baggage bulkhead could go in. The baggage bulkhead is split into upper and lower parts. The lower part has some pre-punched holes in it, and it can be clecoed to the corresponding holes on the lower section of the F-706 bulkhead. Once the lower part is clecoed, the sides can be match-drilled to the F-706 using the holes in the baggage bulkhead as guides. All of the holes are drilled for #8 screws. Eventually, the screws will be captured by nutplates installed on the aft side of the F-706 bulkhead.
The top section of the baggage bulkhead is a bit more complicated. It comes as a rectangular pieces of corrugated aluminum sheet. The top of the sheet needs to have a couple of curves cut in it to match the curvature of the fuselage. Fortunately, the plans give very good details about the location and radii of the curves. The plans also give detailed measurements about where to drill additional holes for the screws that will attach the top section to the fuselage. Once everything was marked out, it was easy to cut the curves with my band saw. After cutting the top section, it was match-drilled to the F-706 bulkhead.
Next, I removed the top section of the bulkhead and cut two notches in it for the shoulder harness cable pass-throughs. Again, the plans had very clear locations for these, so they were simple to make.
Finally, I fabricated the wear blocks for the shoulder harness cable pass-throughs. These are just pieces of plastic that prevent the shoulder harness cables from rubbing on the aluminum bulkhead. The hardest part about making these was finding the stock material. Eventually, I discovered it in a small bag inside the bag containing the shoulder harness cables (a logical place that should have been my starting point). Of course, this bag was buried on the bottom shelf of my workbench under several other bags and coils of tubing.
Once the parts were located, I made quick work of the fabrication. Several aluminum washers have to be made to give so that the rivets used to install the wear blocks will have better “grab” by having aluminum on both side instead of plastic. Rather than making aluminum washers, I’m going to use some aluminum rivet washers that I had purchased previously. Why do extra work when something you already have will work and look better! Two holes had to be drilled in each of the plastic blocks, and the larger blocks also had to have notches cut in them. Once all the parts were ready, I match-drilled them to the baggage bulkheads.
Pitot-Static System
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Preparation, Wings on May 14, 2010
As I wait for my wing kit to arrive, I’ve been purchasing items that will be needed to complete the wings. My most recent purchase is a Dynon pitot/AOA probe to complete my pitot-static system.
For the non-aviation geeks, the pitot-static system is a two part system that is used to measure airspeed and altitude. The system itself is very simple, consisting of ports on the outside of the plane which are connected to tubing. The tubing then runs to various instruments. The instruments translate changes in air pressure to useful information.
The pitot tube, mounted under the wing in this case, is used to measure airspeed. The static ports, consisting of two ports on the aft fuselage, are used to measure altitude and help correct the airspeed. Both the pitot and static ports allow outside air to enter the tubing they are attached to. The static ports are out of the slipstream and allow static air to enter. The pitot tube points forward. Air is forced into the tube as a result of the airplanes forward motion. The faster you go, the higher the pressure will be in the pitot system. The tubing for the pitot-static system is routed to various instruments which measure the pressure in the system and convert that to useful information such as airspeed and altitude. It may sound complicated, but it is actually a very simple system.
Van’s supplies aluminum tubing in the kit. This tubing is used to make all the pitot-static lines and the pitot tube. The static ports supplied in the kit are nothing more than a couple pop-rivet heads with tubing glued on to the back. While this works perfectly well, I decided to go another route. I’m using the Safeair1 pitot-static and AOA tubing kits, the Safeair1 pitot mast, the Safeair1 static ports, and a Dynon pitot/AOA tube.
The Safeair1 pitot, static, and AOA tubing is plastic tubing and push-on connectors. I feel this will be much easier to install than aluminum tubing and produce fewer leaks that have to be tracked down and fixed. The Safeair1 static ports are billet aluminum that has been milled to duplicate the shape of the Van’s pop-rivet port. They won’t work any better than the Van’s method, but they just look nicer.
The only reason I’m using the Safeair1 pitot mast is because it is specifically made for use in an RV with the Dynon pitot/AOA tube. This alone should make it simple to install. The Dynon pitot/AOA is basically two tubes wrapped up in a very nice package. The upper port is the pitot port, while the lower port is the AOA. The AOA (or Angle of Attack) uses differential pressure between the two ports to measure the wing’s angle of attack (wing chord vs. relative wind). Simply put, it is a type of stall warning. However, AOA can also be used as a tool for landing. Navy pilots fly AOA, not airspeed, when they land on carriers.