Kit Aircraft Modifications

Hello Everyone,

I recently had the final inspection completed  on my RV-10 and one of the snags surprised me. The inspector was looking at my beautiful Andair fuel caps and asked me whether they were ground bonded to the airframe. I didn’t know so we took a multi-meter and checked to see if there was an electrical connection between the Andair sleeve that gets bonded into the original fuel neck in Van’s wing tank and the wing skin. There wasn’t.

This meant that I had to come up with a way to electrically connect the original neck of the fuel tank and the sleeve that gets bonded in with tank sealant.

What I did to correct this was to  drill a hole in the Skirt of the Andair sleeve big enough to allow a 6-32 machine screw to almost pass through. I then drilled a smaller hole through the skirt of the tank filler neck right behind it. I had to countersink the outer hole so that the screw head would not interfere with the fuel cap. There is not much clearance. I used a tap and carefully started the threads in the Andair sleeve. I then threaded the screw that had been sharpened somewhat through both sleeves.

All of this had to be done carefully in order to keep any contaminants out of the fuel tank. I accomplished this by taking strips of masking tape and looping them down into the tank fill opening and just leaving the area exposed where I drilled the hole. When I finished I vacuumed out the hole and checked inside for filings. Anything that landed on the empty tank bottom was removed with a stick that had tape affixed to it sticky side out.

I tested the new configuration for continuity and found that electricity flowed from the inner sleeve to the wing skin. For all of the thinking it took to come up with a workable fix, it took only 10 minutes to actually perform the work.

The interesting thing about this problem is that Andair knows about it but couldn’t offer any suggestions as to a fix. I hope that this helps anyone else who has these fuel caps.

Keep on building,

Dave

Hi Everyone,

I just came across a new flight planning site that has been developed by Canadians and is Canadian at its core. It is called World Flight Planner.

www.worldflightplanner.com

What a refreshing change. It seems that all of the products that I have been reviewing lately in anticipation of flying my plane think that Canada is only 100 miles from North to South! It is frustrating to see all of these wonderful tools in the hands of the Americans and we are left in the cold up here with our whiz wheels!!

EH to GO Doug and Blake!! You have made one Canadian VERY Happy.

Dave

Hi Everyone,

I found this mod in the back pages of  Doug Reeves’ site www.vansairforce.net

Paul Grey from Alabama came up with an arm rest for his RV-7 that is functional and nice looking. I have clipped his caption to explain the photos.

Dave

Hi all, Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Thought I’d post a couple pictures of my cockpit… er… the evolution on the cockpit. The cockpit was pretty much done then I decided I wanted an arm rest. This is what I came up with. Super simple and cheap. You’ll see I also moved the elevator trim knob to just under the armrest. The reason I moved it was because if I was in the seat with shoulder harnesses on, I really could not reach the knob without loosing the shoulder straps. Now, the only thing in the cockpit I can’t reach without loosening the straps is the fuel tank selector. The armrest is perfect as it places my hand right at the throttle. Very comfy. Reaching the trim knob, (and the aileron trim), is just a matter of coming at it from the passenger side of the armrest. Both are easily reached without loosening any shoulder straps.

Cockpit Before Mod

Arm Rest Frame

Arm Rest Attached to Flap Cover

Covered with trim knob moved

Finished Arm Rest

Hi Everyone,

I received notice from Geared Drives a while ago that they are suggesting that everyone install separate fuses for each of the ignition coils. Apparently they had an occurrence of a coil shorting out. This in turn caused the fuse that supplies all of the coils to blow and the total loss of power.

Geared Drives suggested that we purchase a Granger fuse holder and 20A fuse for each coil pack.

The Granger unit looks like this:

Here is a photo of the finished installation on my LS1:

It worked out that it is a very neat installation that leaves me lots of room to get at the fuses. Looks “Factory”!

Keep on building but remember to kiss the wife and thank her for letting you have so much fun without her! You don’t want to get AIDS (Aircraft Induced Divorce Syndrome)

Dave

Greetings,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday!

I have an airplane that doesn’t have a small window for the pilot to open and shout “CLEAR” out of when starting the engine. When it is cold out you want that door shut and with its gull wing design you cant leave it raised with the engine running.

Initially, I thought that it would be neat to have a small powered PA speaker mounted in the engine compartment through which you could broadcast your “CLEAR” at the appropriate time. It would be somehow linked into the audio panel and your headset microphone. This idea proved to be more trouble than it solved.

I then got the idea of installing a small car horn in the engine compartment so that you could warn a larger area with the touch of a button while keeping the doors closed.

I wired it such that the horn circuit is energized only when the starter button is energized. This would keep inadvertent activation to a minimum.

I works very well except for the cheapness of the horn I purchased. It doesn’t sound very authoritative. I guess I will have to be on the lookout for a different horn.

Happy Building,

Dave

Hi everyone,

I would like to announce that I have started a separate blog that will talk about my Dail2Start Cellular Control Units and in general remote control via GSM controlled switches.

I would be very pleased if you signed up to follow either of my blogs as this gets the word out further and wider to people who might be interested in purchasing my units.

Briefly, the Dial2Start Cellular Switch can operate any 100v appliance, motor, pump,etc. from anywhere in the world via SMS text messaging. It works great for starting up furnaces at cottages, controlling vehicle pre-heaters and such. Heck, I even have a unit in a bill board controlling a JackPot sign that lights up when the casino has a winner!

I would be pleased if you had a look at the new bolg and sign up if you are interested. It is located at:

http://dial2start.blogspot.com/

Thanks,

Dave

Hi everyone,

Recently, I completed the final inspection on my RV-10 and after fixing up a few snags ( I would have been VERY surprised if he didn’t find any problems) I now have permission to take her flying. We have named the plane Vera May after my grandmother and I have been able to get the registration marks C-GVMH which are her initials. I have a couple of issues to deal with before she takes flight though. I have a nagging radio problem that we have been trying to rectify. The SL-30 has been going into COMM failure after it warms up and it eventually will not change frequencies. It transmits and receives OK on the frequency it is on, it just stops allowing you to flip/flop after a while. No primary radio. No first flight. Simple as that! I have an avionics tech working with me on it.

I am SO happy that this 7 year build is coming to an end. I am looking forward to flying this thing and eventually sharing it with my VERY patient wife and children. So far, I have avoided AIDS (Aircraft Induced Divorce Syndrome) but my wife does want to see some utility out of the huge black money pit that sits in the hangar. You ALL know what I am talking about.

I was out at the airport on Saturday and had an opportunity to run the engine up close to max RPM. A friend of mine named Gary who owns an RV-7 was around and later told me how sweet the LS1 sounded. He said that he couldn’t hear the prop but rather the engine. Said that he looks forward to watching me do a ‘runway inspection’ so he can hear the engine in flight. I look forward to obliging him.

I had purchased a MT prop governor from Van’s a while back thinking that they are all the same. Well, they’re NOT! There are actually 4 variants of the prop governor as I have come to understand. Clockwise and counter-clockwise as well as pressure to go coarse and pressure to go fine. I had purchased a CW unit and I needed a CCW unit. (I think that is right) Anyway, I had a P-860-4 and I needed an P-850-4. I sent it into Hope Propeller in Mississauga Ontario and they converted it over to the opposite direction.

I mounted it on the gearbox and ran the engine up and whadda ya know!! It worked. It took a while to get the oil into the prop hub to move the piston but it eventually worked. Much to my better state of mind.

I am going to have another pilot do the first flight for me. I don’t have enough experience in higher performance aircraft to do the first flight. He has 12,000+ hours and tons of time behind high performance engines. He holds his current ATPL license so he can transition me into the cockpit after the first couple of flights.

Hope everyone had a good holiday and that they got lots of work done on their projects.

Dave

Hi Everyone,

I am VERY happy to announce that the first run of Dial-2-Start Cellular Remote Switches are ready for sale.

For those who haven’t been following the development of this product, I have been developing a device that will control your engine pre-heater allowing you to start heating up your engine by simply calling the unit.

The unit plugs into any standard 110 volt socket and can supply 12 amps to any type of heater or other device you choose. It has 2 output circuits that have LED lights in the ends so you can tell if the unit is activated. The outputs can be set to turn on for a specific amount of time up to 18 hours and can be activated by a phone call or via SMS text message.  When activated via SMS text message the unit will send you a confirmation text message saying that it has activated.

This device has been designed to replace cyclical timers which are not good for an engine. Turning on the pre-heater daily will result in condensation forming inside the engine. In time this results in rusting of wear surfaces and premature component failure.

It is best to pre-heat your engine and then fly the airplane. This will drive the moisture from the crank case. When you return the engine is allowed to cool to the surrounding temperature without undue moisture in the crank case.

Imagine being able to get up in the morning to a beautiful sky then calling your aircraft to prepare it for flight while you have your morning coffee. By the time you drive to the airport the engine is toasty warm and ready for flight. You open the hangar doors and are ready to fly!!

There will be winter cost savings in fuel simply because you do not have to wait for the engine to get up to the 100 deg. take off temperature. Burning AV gas is a very expensive way of getting your engine up to temperature. It is even more so when the temperatures are below 10 deg. C!!

I took the time and effort to develop this product the safe way as well. I have used ONLY tested and rated components. Others are using boards with unrated Chinese relays and such. I have put the unit through safety testing and it has obtained a c TUV us safety rating.

I am very happy with the units and have the available for sale at www.dial2start.com

Thanks for listening and I hope you have a tailwind!

Dave

I thought that I would talk a little bit about the axillary fuel tank I have installed in the forward part of the baggage compartment in my RV-10.

The RV-10 is a four place aircraft and as such is pretty nose heavy when you are flying with only the front seats occupied. As such, many owners fly with removable ballast in the baggage compartment. This ballast can take many forms such as a bag of sand, tool bag or in my case fuel.

I designed a fuel tank that fits in the forward co-pilot’s side of the baggage compartment. It occupies the triangular shaped cavity below the cross member at the front of the baggage compartment. It is mounted to the airframe using four AN4 bolts into the upper cross member and seven #8 screws through 2 mounting flanges. One to the forward side wall and one to the front center tunnel cross member.

The tank holds about 11.3 gallons of fuel. At 5.83 lbs/gal that works out to 65.9 lbs of fuel. The tank itself weighs in at approx. 14 lbs. The associated pumps, wiring and plumbing weigh in at about 10 lbs. Total weight of the system with full fuel is around 90 lbs.

This tank is directly connected to the right wing tank supply line that runs to the main fuel valve. The line to the aux. tank tees off of the Right wing tank feed line and runs through a 12v NC (normally  closed) fuel shut-off valve that prevents fuel from flowing through the line when not energized.

Through a pair of wobble pumps I can either fill or drain the aux. tank from the right hand wing tank. There are both an electronic fuel gauge and a sight tube incorporated into the tank. The electronic sender is required if I want to directly supply the engine during takeoff. The site tube is there to aid in filling or emptying the tank as ballast.

There have been many trials and tribulations in the design, manufacture and installation of this tank. The process is not for the feint of heart. I have had some small leaks show up where the mounting brackets are welded to the tank body. I have also needed to add the fuel shut-off valve when I realized that the fuel in the aux. tank was gravity feeding back into the right wing tank. This oversight cost me a couple of days work in fabricating new plumbing in the pump bay to make room for the new valve.

What I do have now though, is a tool that will allow me to adjust the plane’s center of gravity depending on the mission. The plane flies much better with some additional weight in the back when the rear seats are unoccupied. I can now tailor the amount of ballast I carry and as a bonus I have an extra hour+ of fuel to be able to get into areas without fuel and the ability to be able to purchase a larger quantity of cheaper fuel.

I feel that this approach to the addition of extra fuel capacity in the RV-10 is much better option as compared to adding extra fuel to the outboard areas of the wing. By adding the weight to an area already designed to carry it I am not altering the wing in any way. I didn’t feel comfortable in adding the extra weight out at the end of the wing because I would not have been able to test it properly. The added outboard weight could have an adverse effect on the aircraft in the stall/spin envelope and I don’t play in that sand box.

Anyway, I have almost all of the kinks worked out of the design and have had fuel in the tank for calibration of the fuel level sender and sight tube. I have to determine the moment location of the tank and factor the weight of the fuel into the weight and balance calculations.

I will take some  pictures if I think about it and post them later.

Dave

Hi Everyone,

Just a note to let everyone know that I am still here and still plugging away at my RV-10 and the myriad of other projects I have on the go.

Since I last posted I have been able to move the plane to the hangar and substantially complete the construction and wiring. I am now working on the little details while testing the fuel system for leaks.

I have been working on the Dial2Start units and we are finally ready for production! The path in getting this unit ready for sale has been MUCH longer than I anticipated and much more costly. The Dial2Start unis are now certified under the c TUV us  mark and I am now confident in selling them to the general public.

I will be posting more information here shortly and will get a few more articles posted regarding the LS1 conversion.

Dave