Google blogger has been giving me fits lately. You know you can't complain too much for something that is almost free, but the editing on this site is pretty bad. I just updated my Internet Explorer to 10 and that has seemed to fix my issues, but I am definitely behind in my posts because of this snafu.
Anyway, airplane stuff...busy, busy, busy in the Factory...and no, I'm not done yet. Thanks for asking. :)
So, because I am just about sick of messing with wiring, I have been on an extended break from it while I tend to some other items on my list that don't involve flowing electrons. Namely, the last details of the center console...which includes work on the control cables, throttle quadrant and now...the smoke oil pump.
I recently decided to buck the trend and not use Smoking Airplanes for my smoke system. I realize just about everyone uses that company, partly because they are the only game in town....or so I thought? Although I have heard good things about Smoking Airplanes and am not here to bash them in any way...comments like, "their kit is all inclusive", "they have great support" and "the instructions are good."
My problem with them is, #1...their price is expensive in my opinion at almost $1000 for a system and #2, I think their "kit" is a little bit of overkill to some degree which I guess drives up the cost. At this point in the project, I am just about sick of spending obscene amounts of cash...I am crying uncle!
I had intended to build a triangular shaped fiberglass tank that would fit behind my seat, and then buy the Smoking Airplanes kit without the tank (still $689). I thought this tank was a great idea (sure, I realize I might be biased), and also thought it was original as I hadn't seen anyone else do it? Well, turns out I was not the first to come up with this clever idea. Marvin Homsley of Smoke System by Homsley Aircraft created a 4 gallon welded aluminum tank with flop tube and vented cap that is exactly the concept I was thinking. Even buying this tank at $300, I will be well under the Smoking Airplanes cost of a system. It was a no-brainer for me after exchanging some emails with Marvin. I will be his first customer for this tank and I will do a full writeup later on my experience.
Ok, so, getting started...although I don't have the tank yet, I did buy the pump and injectors from Marvin. The problem was...where to mount the pump? Marvin was planning to mount it on the other side...behind the seat that doesn't have the tank. This would be fine, but I want to put a Bison RV flight bag there...so I needed to come up with an alternative.
As you probably know...space is pretty tight in these buggers so my options were limited. I considered mounting it FWF...mounting it behind the baggage bulkhead...but in the end, I decided to use up the relatively unused space in front of my center console and boost pump as you can see from the picture above.
A shot of the throttle quadrant in place...I need to come up with a mounting scheme for my control cables which I'll show later. As you can see, my center console is designed to come out in pieces for ease of maintenance.
Its nice that I can work on this sub-assembly on my workbench.
As a Mechanical Engineer...I am a stickler about "strain relief" with my wiring...don't forget this. These two pics show my adel clamps to secure the wires coming out of the pumps. Again, both pumps can be unplugged and the entire sub-assembly removed for maintenance.
The problem with this arrangement is the smoke oil pump is a little wider than the center console. I suppose you could just leave the pump and its hoses exposed to your feet...I didn't want to do that. First, it looks unfinished...and second, its a catch point for your feet. Even though its not a flight critical system, I didn't like that. So I built a couple "wings" to clean it up a bit.
Yes, it does cut down on your foot space but it is easily clear of my feet while on the rudders. It will be fine, I knew putting in a center console would limit my foot space a little anyhow and I'm ok with that as a tradeoff. I sat in the cockpit for quite awhile like this (had a beer actually) and it feels very comfy to me.
Here I am fit checking and tweaking the whole shooting match...seats, console, quadrant. This kind of gives you an idea what the finished product will look like. The red leather on the armrest is a piece of sample that Luke at CAD sent me when I was selecting my seats. I am quite pleased with how this is coming out. Notice the automotive console plastic spring latch that I picked up through Auto Zone...seems to work fine for my application.
These last shots show my access panel for the throttle quadrant.
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