Last Modified November 30th 1999

November 1999, Instrument Panel Started

November 1st - 5th No building

November 6th Printed out my 'final' plan for the instrument panel. Other than one switch location on the radio panel that I had missed out I am pleased with the layout. It wasn't until I tried to 'fly' the panel a few weeks ago that I found that the cage button on the artificial horizon and the QNH adjustment on the altimeter conflicted. This resulted in my relocating the artificial horizon to the bottom row of the panel. This has in fact resulted in a simple instrument scan pattern as the microencoder located to the right of the artificial horizon gives me altititude, altimeter and vertical speed all in the one instrument.

I made up a couple of glass objects that will be attached to the aircraft next time the top is off. First was the battery support box which needed modifiying to fit the 17Ah battery that I am now using. The second item is a small plenum which will act as a static vent for the fuel tank and sight gauge. Unlike the current Europa specification I am using an experimental design provided by Andy Draper which terminates all of the fuel vents as static vents instead of pitot vents. Andy's design has each of the vents terminating in an external static port however the presence of a local wasp (well there are quite a few of them actually) that loves making nests in small holes. This has led me to design in a small mesh covered plenum to terminate the lines. The final piece I made was a small half airfoil shape which will be fitted to the underside of the aircraft. In the low pressure area of this airfoil will be a number of small holes which provides suction for the cockpit air outlet.

November 7th No building - this is getting to be a disturbing habit!!!

November 8th In between phone calls I laid out cutting template on the instrument panel. I am using a false front on the panel that will be attached to the main panel with screws. This will allow me to make changes in the future and also allows me to make a mess of cutting holes without fraying my temper. You can guess from this that I am really bad at cutting holes in aluminium, something I have many hours experience of having made my own computer cases in the past.

November 9th Laid up the glass on the inside of the starboard flap extension. Removed the foam from the inside of the moldings I made the other day. This is very easy to do with the help of a few ounces of acetone. Pour it in and watch the foam melt!

November 10th Painted the air plenum.

November 11th Finally got the analogue section of the fuel gauge working. Now all I have to do is code the microprocessor to linearise it for the Europa tank.

November 12th -13th No building.

November 14th A full building day, target - do everything needed to be able to put the top on. I decided to seal the flap holes on the fuselage. To accomplish this I used 1.6mm nitrile sheet cut 6cm wider than the hole. A 5mm wide slit was then cut to follow the path of the flap tube while at the top end, where the tube will be in normal flight I cut out a hole the size of the tube. Having scuffed the sheet and inside of the fuselage where they would be bonded I glued the sheet to the fuselage with a slightly flox thickened mixture of redux.

To tidy up the exit point of the trim tab arm I made up a top and bottom plate to go between the sternpost and the restricting plates that I had bonded in earlier. With these bonded in place I effectively end up with a box surrounding the actuating arm with a small slit at the front which allows the arm to move vertically. A nitrile seal closes off the slit removing the opportunity for foreign objects (and mice!) to be introduced into the inside of the aircraft.

I cut a hole for the static opening that will go under the static plenum and bonded a small circular cupboard vent covering into the hole before bonding the plenum cover over the vent. Next on the list was fitting the battery box between the baggage bay bulkhead supports. A 1" thick piece of foam acts as the base for this with a ply sheet fitted with six nutplates floxed and glassed onto the top. The glass layups lap fore and aft onto the base of the fuselage while the sides lap onto the baggage bay supports.

With the remaining redux that I had I bonded some tie bases into useful places for future securing of wires and vent tubes.

My ELT aerial is a split dipole laid along the very front of the baggage bay with the cable leading down into the tunnel and exiting to the left baggage area which houses the ELT itself. The two copper strips making up the aerial were reinforced with another layer of copper and then glassed over with one layer of bid. This location is only 3cm narrower than is ideal for a 121.5 split dipole so I allowed the dipole to go up the sides of the aircraft for the 1.5cm each side. The measured length gives an optimum transmitting frequency just a couple of MHz off optimum for that frequency.

November 15th Primed the inside of the trim arm box. With the inside in white the apparent size of the trim tab slots reduce quite noticeably and I am sure they will almost disappear once the rest of the aircraft is painted white. I cleaned up the layups done the day before and screwed the battery box onto its housing. I am vey pleased at the result as It gives a very strong mounting for the battery. The battery itself will be secured to the box with a baggage strap a quick release clip.

I finished off the fuel lines leaving the two engine lines hanging out of the front of the aircraft at the present time. I'll have a think about whether I want to split the lines or bring them together along one side of the tunnel before bonding in mounting points. Still underneath the aircraft I drilled and then tapped holes for the brake cable on the undercarriage arm before securing the brake cable with clips.

Glassed in the area around the tank fuel entry and vent points. All I did here was use multiple small layers of bid to close up all of the gaps while ensuring that the filler neck and vent covers could still be fitted correctly.

November 16th Gave the inside of the plane a good cleanout and check over. I think I have run out of excuses not to bond the top onto the aircraft though I have no doubt at all that as soon as I do so then somebody will point out something else I should have done. I need to have Alister check out the inside of the plane before I bond the top on as this is the last time he can really see what the insides look like.

November 17th - 18th Sanding.

November 19th No building.

November 20th Only a bit of work today despite it being a Saturday. I flipped the top of the aircraft over and lined the inside of the top centre panel with heat shield. The rest of my free time I spent sanding.

November 21st - 24th No building, working in Taupo.

November 25th No building, SAANZ Auckland AGM.

November 26th No building.

November 27th Some months ago I had a visitor who was a licensed aircraft engineer. During his look over the plane he made a comment that the two stainless steel tubes where the tailwheel cables left the aircraft were likely to erode the cables and that I should make sure that I did regular checks on those two cables. We discussed alternative methods of improving the system and he suggested that I copy the tube guides that I had used on the rest of the aircraft and use nylon rather than the stainless steel ones. I cut the tailwheel cables and removed them from the aircraft then, using a small amount of pressure (read hammer) removed the stainless steel tubes from the aircraft. I cut nyloflex tubes to length and fitted them to the aircraft then remade the cables. Once I had confirmed that my nicopress sleeves passed the go-no go test and had shrunk the sleeving I tested the tailwheel operation. The slight flexibility of the nylon guide allows the tube to move at the exit point to accomodate the deviation of the cable as the wheel moves from left to right. All in all I am most satisfied with the change. To fill the rest of the afternoon I did some......sanding.

November 28th

I spent the morning working on the instrument panel. I had earlier marked out the shape of the basic panels onto 1.6mm aluminium sheet and, using these markings, cut the shape out with a jigsaw. To keep the jigsaw from scratching the sheet I stuck some duct tape onto be base.

Once I had cut the panels out I cut the instrument panel removing as much as I could with the jigsaw before finishing off with permagrit tools.

The base of the radio panel has two directional air vents so I needed to make an air plenum to accept the air inlet hose and direct the flow to the two vents. I shaped a block of foam to shape and then, with the block on the bench, laid up two layers of bid over it.

Once the foam is removed from the inside of this layup I will fit the air inlet and bond the plenum into place. I am tinkering with a thermostatically controlled vent to feed air from this plenum into the instrument panel. All I will need here is a small flap that can be opened and closed with a small solenoid and control this with a DS1620 digital thermostat.

After lunch I plumbed the wiring into the port wing. I had hoped that I could run the static tubing with the wiring but my duct isn't big enough due to the fact that I laid this in before Europa changed the location of the pitot static head. I am changing the supplied pitot and static soft tubing supplied for nylon tubing which should last the life of the aircraft. I am not happy with running both of the tubes in the flap closeout as recommended by Europa and am now trying to work out an alternative method of getting these to the root of the wing.

November 29th I removed the foam from the inside of the plenum layup by first using acetone to soften the foam and then scraping the remains out with an old hacksaw blade.

The edges needed a bit of trimming to establish the fit then once in place I laid up strips of two plies of bid lapping onto the instrument panel. Over the back area when the hose inlet would be attached I laid up another three layers of bid to create a strong surface.

November 30th I tidied up the layups and then fitted three nutserts to act as mounting points for the hose fitting. A few minutes removing the glass inside of the hose fitting had the plenum complete.