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First in Flight

August 14, 1901


My status

 

 

 

Blue Mountain Sport Installation
Page 1 - Planning
Page 3 - Flying


I started work on the Autopilot installation on Saturday, March 5th...  Work began with removing my strobe power pak and relocating it to the side wall behind the baggage compartment...

finish55.jpg (33304 bytes)

Here's where I had my strobe power pak mounted before...  On the floor stiffeners just behind the baggage compartment and before the elevator bell crank...

 

After removing the plate that I had riveted to the floor I used it and some angle to make a mount for the Power Pak on the right side wall...  I also dud the same thing to mount the Autopilot Controller on the left side wall...  Also In this photo and next you can see the servo mounting...  Note the bracket I made to keep the arm from sliding off the shaft should it's set screw come loose...  You can also see the yellow CAT5 crossover cable that is used to connect the AP Controller to the BM Sport...

 

Before I mounted the servo I mounted the Magnetometer...  I made my own Z bracket to mount it to the floor in the aft part of the bay aft of the baggage compartment bay...  I made the Z bracket out of a couple of angles...  The bracket had to have 5.1 degrees of tilt in it to make it level in the Z axis I guess it would be...
 
You can see the stiffener I put in floor of the bay when I was building the plane...  I put a laser level on it and it was right down the center line so I used to for reference in setting up the MM in all axis...  It should work good here...  I tested the location with a whiskey compass and couldn't get it to swing, not even pulling the rudder cables as close as I could get them would make it swing...  To wire it up I bought some 4 conductor shielded cable to run up to the BM Sport...
 

I then used the space left on the floor stiffeners to mount the servo...  Using the second hole in the servo arm I was able to get 58 degrees of are movement in both directions...  The manual specifies at least 45 but no more that 60...  I used some channel aluminum I found and it worked pretty good, however I think some Z angle brackets like the ones for mounting the fuel tanks to the spars would work much better...  I am going to make my own for the aileron servo mounting...

I have the new panel in from Experimental Air who cut it for me...  Ross does great work!  This is the second panel he has cut for me...  I should have it back from the power coater on Friday...

Working on the aileron servo...  Once I decided where the thing was going to go I made the bell crank arm safety bracket, which actually came in handy later in the installation process...  I found that doing anything related to making brackets for these servos is easier with the covers taken off...  I did put them back on once it was installed...

 

Here you can see how I installed a bolt through the bottom skin and up into the bell crank arm safety bracket...  My installation seemed sound, but I had to trim my brackets down because of where I ran my wires (another story and stupid mistake...I ran them on above the controls instead of below), and in the end the servo would move ever so slightly when pushing on the arm to move the controls so I added this ancher to take care of that...  it's rock solid now...

 

I'm sorry I didn't take any photos of the brackets, it was midnight when I was finishing this up last night...  Basically what I did was take some .060 and cut it the size of the servo base all the way to the end of the frame and as wide as the rib so that it spanned the full width of the rib, then drilled it to match the servo mounting holes...  The servo sits right no top of this...  On the back (other side of the rib) there are two .060 angles with nut plates installed, these also span the rib and are drilled to match...  The rib is now sandwiched between the brackets...

 

I was lucky there is an -8 wing in the skeleton stage in my hangar so it was easy laying everything up...  At first I though I would have trouble getting in there to drill and install the brackets and servo, but surprisingly I was able to get in there without too much trouble...  The arm I made was about 5" long and worked out perfectly...

 

Although I couldn't get my digital level in there, I could see by the travel and position of the arm in relation to the servo body that I am getting just about the same swing I am with the elevator servo...  I would guess somewhere are 45-50 degrees in each direction.....but no where near over center...  I am very happy with how this installation turned out...  The bolt I installed in the skin looks bad in the photo, but once the cover is installed (I cut a notch in the cover to allow for the bolt) you hardly notice it...

 

This look familiar?  Pretty much what it looked like the last time I did this...  It really isn't as bad as it looks...  I was able to remove some wiring that I don't need anymore, and a lot of the pitot and static lines...
 

Here's the panel pretty much ready to go back in the plane...  I ended up putting the old analog G-Meter back in.....up top on the right side...  I think they are better for acro...  I am also working on my own carbon monoxide detector that I will be selling through my business:  CreativAir

 

Here's the nearly finished product...  I still need to install another GPS...  Either my GPSMAP 196, or I may break down and get a AvMap EKP-IV...  I really like my 196, but the AvMap is HUGE!  :o)  I will also be installing a Digital Traffic Monitor from TL Electronic in the blank 2 1/4" hole as soon as it gets here...

Page 1 - Planning
Page 3 - Flying