August 26, 2006

I went to the hangar this afternoon with the intention of staying until after dark, so I could set the landing and taxi lights. I had set the landing light previously, but I think it was a little low. Anyway, today was spent wandering around all over the plane doing this and that….

First up was to sort out the wiring at the wing tips. Finish up putting connectors on etc. Here, I put some edge protector on the rib for the HID light wiring. I used some RTV to hold it in place. The tape is just to hold it there until the RTV cures.

Here’s the right wing. I put a connector on the marker beacon cable, two ring terminals on the VOR antenna, and the Molex connectors on the nav light and strobe light leads. I also tie wrapped the taxi light cable to keep it from flopping around all over the place.

While we we on the subject of antennae, I figured I might as well get the GPS stuff out the way. I got a bulkhead connector as a firewall pass through, and made the cable to go to the GX60.

It’t the bottom right antenna cable on the radio tray. I still need to tie all this stuff up.

Last weekend I took my data plate in to a place in the local mall called ‘Things Remembered’. They sell all kinds of junk that you can have personalised by having it engraved there. Well, I must confess I was a bit worried about how good a job they’d do. I made a photocopy of the plate and wrote on exactly what I needed. I picked it up this morning, and it looked fantastic. I was very impressed! All the writing is perfectly centred both up and down and left to right. Lovely.

Here it is on the plane. Sweet.

I finally put a ring terminal on the ground wire for the cylinder heaters, and connected it to something!

I put the little cover on the heater diffuser. Normally under here there’s a Facet fuel pump, but not for me! I was tempted to rivet this thing on a while back, but figured I’d just screw it on.

Seeing the cabin heat knob reminded me that I replaced the 1.8" ball bearing in the park brake cable too. I had to buy a bag of 100 bb’s, so I’ve got lots of replacements for when I lose another one! It’s a good job they were cheaper than dirt!

This is the start of our marker beacon antenna. Basically, I stripped off 40" of the shielding, put some heatshrink over it and I’ll add a female BNC connector when it arrives from SteinAir. Once the BNC connector os on, I’ll glass it into the wing tip.

I got a big order of stuff from McMaster-Carr, including some screws long enough for the last screw hole in the canopy tracks. I finally put them in.

After going to get some food, it had gotten dark enough to sort out the lighting. I pushed the plane outside and pointed it down the hangar row. Heck, these lights are BRIGHT!

Do you think they’ll see us coming?!! Holy smokes! 100W each side, and it shows!

Now the lights are set, I’ll make the lens for the taxi light, and the lenses for the nav lights. I also want to get everything wrapped up in the front fuselage.

I also stopped by an upholstery shop to have them put stud pasteners in my seat backs instead of the velcro that comes with them. The velcro method has you stick a piece under the lip of the seat, and eventually it comes off. Crap. I’m going to follow Cameron’s idea of using the stud fasteners. I’ll rivet the male halves to the seat backs, and the female halves will be put on the seat cushions. I’ll take some pics when they come back. While I was there, I discussed with the owner about getting a glareshield cover made. He’s going to come and take a look at the plane to figure outhow best to do it. It needs to be made before the skin is riveted on, so we need to get cracking.