Battery Cables and More Wiring HOBBS 1588.5 hrs

I was up at o'dark-thirty Saturday morning working on the Vertical Power harnesses. I did this on the dining room table for more comfort, soft music, fireplace going, nice...the lighting isn't so good though, which is why you see my little LED flood light. The iPad has my Vertical Power pinout...very handy as I work my way through these.

 

If you are going this route on your plane...some advice, be sure to use the correct length wire for each application. There are 20 ft, 10 ft and 5 ft lengths in the harness bundle. So, you will have to do some planning to use them correctly. Also, if you read this soon enough...don't run wires to your nav lights/strobes or any thing that will terminate at the VP box. It will be wasted effort. In fact, I need to either rent a crimper from VP or send my shielded nav/strobe wires in for crimping since they terminate at the box. Part of the learning...

Labeling all wires as I stuff them into the connector.

These are about 95% done...as mentioned, they are missing shielded wires for the strobes.

I started running my heavy duty 4 AWG wires...this one from the starter contactor to the starter.

That was all well and good, until I read in the VP instructions (which are great by the way) to NOT hook up the starter. If I mistakenly do something to engage that starter, my very pretty prop will be running into some interesting stuff. I pulled it off...and taped over the end just to be safe. Part of the large learning curve for a Mechanical Engineer as he ventures into the world of flowing electrons!! duh! Think...

Routing from the master contactor to the battery. The black ADEL clamp in this pic is temporary as I need to order some more of the white high temp SS versions for the FWF. Notice the red shrink tube designating positive (+)...maybe not needed but a nice touch I thought.

I cut this boot back...its designed for a right angle application, not straight on...I didn't like the way it bunched up...looks better this way I think.

Added a conduit on the inside of the firewall for wire routing. The RG400 coax going to the 978 MHz UAT antenna (from Delta Pop) is the first occupant. This will terminate at the GDL39.

 

This pic shows my 978 MHz UAT antenna location...I will put the transponder antenna behind the baggage bulkhead so I have 60" separation between the two.

I realized I never showed a pic of the back of my seats. They are very professional looking, just like the rest of the seat. A hard plastic reinforcement is attached where the seat rests on the fuselage cross support. The center device is for adjusting your lumbar support. And of course, each seat has a map pocket.

CAD Newsletter HOBBS 1538.5 hrs

I subscribe to the Classic Aero Designs (CAD) email newsletter so I can keep up on whats going on...new offerings, etc. I got my newest version over the weekend...and low and behold, my seats are highlighted in the seat gallery notice on the left. Cool!

In other news, great fall weather and fall colors here in the Rocky Mountains...love this state and this time of year. I took the motorcycle for a scenic loop from Boulder to Nederland to Estes Park via the Peak-to-Peak highway on Saturday. What a great ride and amazing fall colors! I didn't want to return from Estes Park...I actually was going to spontaneously grab a hotel for the night, but alas, everything was booked...apparently I wasn't the only one with that idea? :)

Oh...and by the way, I also did some work on the plane too...plenum/baffle work mostly...pics and descriptions to follow. I hope you had a great weekend!

Half Raven HOBBS 1516.0 hrs

I decided to go with a "Half Raven" system on Wablosa. Its called a half raven vs. a full raven, simply because you are only installing about half of a full inverted flight system. Essentially it is just the air/oil separator tank for a cost of ~$400 vs. well over $1000 for a full inverted system. Raven makes a good product for less $$ than the Christen system...nice quality too, I was very happy with this hardware. The tank is more than just a oil holding tank...there is a large ball check valve inside the tank, check out Raven's website for drawings that illustrate how the system works.

What does a half raven system get you? In the simplest of terms, it will allow momentary (few seconds) zero or negative G maneuvers without dumping huge amounts of oil overboard onto your belly through the breather tube. This should be plenty sufficient for the type of flying I plan to do in the -7. I always say, if I want to do more serious aerobatics (and I might), I will rent or borrow a Pitts or Decathlon with a full inverted system.

I used this excellent post by Paul Dye as my installation guide. Again, another great example of guys 'paying it forward'...taking the time to do a detailed explanation of an install for the benefit of builders coming behind them. Thanks Paul.

Tank mounted and starting to run my 6000-12 rubber hose. There are three connections on the tank...top one goes to the engine breather tube outlet, middle one goes down to the exhaust for oil discharge and the bottom one goes to the oil sump.

It took some creative routing of the hose to connect the tank to the engine breather outlet...going around my 90 deg oil filter adapter.

Since I will use my Pmags for tachometer readings, I needed to cover the mechanical tachometer port on the engine since I wouldn't be using it. Doing some research I found that Andair makes a cap for this...bought it through ACS. Not much to it, alum cap with an interior O-ring and holes for safety wire. As I do my FWF work, I am a fanatic about safety wiring EVERYTHING, above and beyond what is required on certified aircraft even...more on this later, but I am glad the cap had this capability built into it.

Here you can see it safety wired in place just to the left of the oil filter adapter.

And in typical Ron Duren fashion...I am bouncing all around with my tasks...here I am back on the panel, I have mounted my audio panel and radio's in place on the panel.

Back to the cowl fitting and installation. I still had the bottom cowl side and bottom hinges to install. Rivet and flox...same deal as before. I replaced the alum hinges on the bottom with SS versions. This is an area that is prone to cracking due to the high vibration from the exhaust pulses.

Bottom and top hinge pinned together while the flox dries....getting there. All cowl hinges are now installed. I needed to get this task done so I can move onto my plenum/baffle fitting since their fitting is most definitely inter-related.

Here I am starting to do some initial fitting and mounting of the baffles. I will need to trim these down quite a bit as I move forward....they really give you a lot of excess material to trim.

Placing my Sam James plenum on top of the engine to take a look at the fit. I need to make the Van's baffles work with the SJ plenum...no instructions on how to do this (the SJ instructions are not very good...but Sam says to call him if you have issues), so this will take a little brain power on my part as I get them to play well together.

A parting shot of my seats...still love the way these look! I better...right! I installed the hinges for the seat backs and want to drill through holes in the seat pan for the seat heater wires next. Then I will start putting together a plan for my center console construction. Once that is complete, they will be removed and set aside until much later as I finish up and get ready for the maiden voyage.

Classic Aero Designs HOBBS 628.0 hrs

I requested, and received my material samples from Classic Aero Designs last week. This will be the company I buy all of my cockpit accessories from. I really like their products, it will give the plane a professional, production look and feel to it.

This will include side panels, carpeting and of course the seat upholstery and embroidery. While building an airplane, you have to function much like a project manager, there are always details that need to be researched and decided upon. To run a successful project without delays, you will have to always be ahead of the game in your planning for long lead items. I'm certainly not ready for the upholstery yet, but the time, at least for me, will be here sooner rather than later.

The ones on the left are the 'ultra leather' samples, the others are leather. I gotta say, the ultra leather is pretty impressive. I originally was planning on leather, but now I am undecided after seeing the samples. The ultra leather feels nice and is lighter and cheaper than the leather. Hmmmm...gotta ponder this.