How is this for a view outside my hangar bright and early on a cold, crisp sunny Saturday morning? Summer seems like a long ways off...that's for sure.
When I decided to postpone the wing mounting for a few weeks, I took advantage of the extra time to research and then decide on adding an oil accumulator to my setup. With the half raven system and now this 1 Qt oil accumulator, I should be able to get 7 seconds of full inverted flight. That will be sufficient for my mission for this plane. Without a counterweighted prop, this is as far as I feel comfortable going with inverted systems. It will allow me to fly sportsman aerobatic competitions without any "cheats". Because this mounts to the firewall, it was good to get this mounted before the wings went on.
An oil accumulator controls engine oil pressure during surges or loss of pressure. The way it works is, its a pressurized canister holding a pre-charge of air on one side of a piston and oil on the other. As the engine oil pressure comes up after start, this will compress the air and fill the canister with oil. If the engine loses oil pressure, the air will force the oil back into the system protecting your engine. Once the pressure comes back up (roll upright), it reverses the process and fills back up with oil until the next time you need it. I followed Ron Schreck's of Team Aerodynamix VAF post regarding installation. I am still working out the details of the plumbing however....pics of this later.
I ordered mine from Summit Racing (great service and selection). They also have hard to find Aeroquip fittings if you ever cant find what you need at ACS.
If you plan to add one, keep in mind, this isn't small...it holds a quart of oil so its gotta be somewhat large. Trying to find a place to mount it wasn't easy.
This is the only place I could do it with my setup. Its not ideal since I cant see the air gauge without removing the cowl. I could remote mount it, but I'm hoping its a "set it and forget it" kind of a deal. It should hold pressure pretty well.
Some measurements to give you an idea...its posted on the site also. Again, this is all I have for install pics right now...the hose routing wasn't easy, I have some hoses on order and we'll see how it all goes together.
On to other things. I got my prop cable finalized with some creativity. The cables I am using don't have a threaded nut, so I had to capture it with a homemade bracket as shown here. Its 4130 steel so its not going anywhere.
As I was getting the prop cable fine tuned...I, of course had to install my center console again. Got it dialed in nicely with almost a full throw on the prop (within about 1/16" for now).
A gratuitous FAA shot of me bundling wiring under the panel prior to wing mounting.
A couple weeks ago I was using some duck bill pliers to pull on some tie wraps when the tie wrap broke and I proceeded to jam the end of the pliers into my face about a half inch below my eye socket! It hurt like hell! After I cleaned up the blood, I realized my flying career might have ended right then and there. Not many one eyed pilots passing an FAA medical that I know of. Be careful! I went out and bought some nice safety glasses and planned to wear them all the time...which I broke during the wing mounting.
Working on wing details...the fuel tank attach brackets need a little bend added to them. Not much to it...add a nut plate on the tank and drill a hole and you're done.
Unfortunately I had to remove my tanks to get to a fitting that was buried behind a wing rib on my auxiliary fuel tanks. This was kind of a pain to get to the bolts on the z-brackets. I timed myself, it took me exactly one hour to remove one tank.
Lastly, I was finishing up the plumbing for the smoke system. This hose will from the pump to the firewall. Notice the needle valve for fine tuning the smoke oil flow rate.
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