Category Archives: Project Planning

The planning of the project tasks (vs build sequences)

Chap’s 13/16/25 – Course deviation

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I started off today sanding down the aft NG30 cover with some 220 grit sandpaper (sorry for the blurry pic).  I then needed to add a tiny bit of Metal Glaze to a few spots for some minor blemish cleanup.

I had also spent a little bit sanding down the GPS antenna cover as well, and it too need a few dabs of Metal Glaze for some blemish cleanup.  In addition, you just might be surprised how intricate the sanding job is on this thing, just to get what is seemingly a fairly simple & basic shape.

Here’s the other side that I also hit at the lower edge with some Metal Glaze.

As the Metal Glaze was curing I then grabbed the tool box body and redrilled the 2 rivet holes on the front face that will be used to mount the lower latch assembly.

Speaking of which, here is the lower latch assembly right here.  I quickly realized that my rivet hand squeezer didn’t have a deep enough arm to allow me to set these rivets.  Guess I’ll have to track down some RV buddies in my local EAA chapter!

Shortly after setting the lower tool box latch in place, I took the dried GPS antenna cover and the aft NG30 cover outside and hit them with high build primer and 3 final coats of paint, respectively.  On the NG30 cover, I was only retouching the left side and front, so I added 3 more coats of paint since I’ll be giving it a good wet sanding before clear coating it.

As I was working on trying to find alternate solutions and locations for the pitch trim actuator unit, I realized that to do this right I really need to be able to test out any potential obstruction or tight fit that a component may pose north of the Instrument Panel.  There’s just one issue with this however: when I sit in the pilot’s seat that itself constitutes an estimated best guess as well, since I have no mounted thigh supports, and no actual seat cushions, etc.  In other words, I’m set to make foundational decisions on what goes where in the nose based on a very loose estimate of my seating position, which in some instances is very critical to figuring out what goes where without having my knee constantly banging into something during a flight.

This drove me into yet another mini-epiphany.  I need to institute a slight change of direction, with a compass heading just a few degrees off of current.  In other words, before I can really press on with getting the nose components in place and dialed in properly, I need to get the pilot seat area squared away.  Thus, I need to work from just a bit more aft forward to get this all right.

So, the first thing I did was to figure and mark up the notch in the right arm rest for the Dynon Intercom unit.

I then cut out the notch in the right arm rest for the Dynon Intercom unit.

Here’s another shot of it.

Since I was in the cutting mode on the right arm rest, I decided to finally finish what I started about 5 years ago and widen the seat belt access opening to the plan’s specs. The reason why it looked the way it did above is actually a little comical: I simply read Burt’s forward dimension as 19.5″ vs the actual 14.5″ . . . resulting in a much narrower seat belt access slot.

Here’s the GPS antenna cover with 3 more coats of primer, which it will need to help finalize its shape.  After I give it a good wash, barring any more shaping requirements, I’ll hit it with a couple of coats of dull off-white primer as the final coat & color.

Here’s a pic of the aft NG30 cover with it’s 3 latest coats of paint on the left & front sides.  I did manage to get one run in the upper left corner on the side, but it should be no big deal since I’m going to give this a good wet sanding, then 2-3 coats of clear coat.

Here’s the front side of the aft NG30 cover.  Again, I’m going to wet sand the entire thing here in the next few days before hitting it with clear coat.

I’ll of course continue to work nose component installations, but to really dial in the nose component placements on such critical items as the pitch trim actuator, I’ll be working on both the left and right armrest consoles, and the thigh support areas in between.

 

 

Chapter 25 – Big Detour

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Most of this post is simply a copy and paste of an email that I sent to my buddy Dave Berenholtz in response to a question he asked me about flying in primer and paint choice:

I’ve gone off the rails yesterday and today going down a long rabbit hole assessing paint systems. I’m trying to do a good cost-benefit analysis and of course acceptable characteristics of each system.  I have to say that I see a lot of fine cracks on canards at RR, etc. and while most all pass the 10-20 foot fine looking test, but get up closer . . . well, fine cracks start coming into view on a lot of these planes.

And then there’s the inevitable chips and dings that show up as well. I don’t plan on necessarily escaping any chips and dings with ANY certain paint, but one of my main requirements is maintenance. In other words, refnishing the chips and dings with a paint that will hold for another year or two before other chips and dings show up. I also see a lot of these planes that look good from a bit away, then when you look at the edges of cowlings, canopies and hatches, they are dinged up pretty good. Thus, why I want to have quick, VIABLE touchup capability.

I also pondered on the question about flying in primer.  I know many builders do it and it’s the en vogue thing to do, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I had a good discussion on this with another good buddy of mine, Greg, who isn’t an airplane builder but is very smart in general and very smart on cars. He noted the trend of car restorers to get vehicles restored, on reworked chassis, beautiful engine & awesome wheels, driving around in primer waiting for that “available” weekend to paint it… which of course never comes. The video Nate Mullins just posted on FaceBook of his wife climbing out of the back of his still-in-primer plane is a perfect example. No offense meant towards Nate, he’s an awesome builder and very knowledgeable Canardian, it just shows how with our human natures, we tend towards certain characteristics.  And I just want to avoid that construct altogether.

In other words, I would rather select a paint system that looks REALLY GOOD, is maintainable and easily reapplied if/when I need to do any refinishing for mods or repairs; rather THAN have AWESOME paint that comes a year after I’m flying, requiring me to:

  •  take my airplane offline for a good while, meaning NO flying while I paint it
  •  add complexity, difficulty and logistics in breaking down, cleaning (bugs, oil, tar, etc.), prepping (and re-sanding!) an operational plane for paint
  • be flying for my first 6-12 months in a not-so-great looking plane (e.g. primer)

Moreover, I’m not married to either roll on or spraying, but obviously roll on would be great since I could finish it here at home (without building a makeshift paint booth!). I am thinking seriously, for both cost and weight in going Burt’s route and doing a minimal paint job on the bottom of the wings and canard, then going more serious with top stuff.

Additionally, I’ve added a new categories to my tracking spreadsheet where I’ve accounted for all the major stuff I would need for each system, which allows me to show a head to head comparison for costs, painter characteristics, and vendors (where to buy).

In fact, today I had a long detailed conversation with my boat people up in Rhode Island. I relayed all my specs and requirements (above) and they confirmed that the MONO-urethane would be a really good way to go for me. Yes, it is slightly less hard-shelled and has slightly less glossy-ness than 2-part polyurethane, but it’s MUCH easier to paint without being finicky or needing self-contained breathing apparatus (yeah, I just about killed myself painting my motorcycle, even with gear… not good!), it is much more easily repaired and touched up, and it really does look good. So good in fact, they said that beer bets could easily be won for people trying to pick out the mono vs 2-part systems if they were side by side… very difficult to tell.

Plus, for the garage/backyard builder, both of the paint experts I was talking to said that mono-urethane, or single stage polyurethane, will make me very happy and fit the bill for what I’m doing. Thus, I’ve narrowed my choices down to two boat paints that can either be rolled on or sprayed: 1) Epifanes mono-urethane, or 2) Pettit EZ Poxy polyurethane (com’n, how can you pass up a paint named EZ Poxy?!).

The scratch test on Epifanes beats out a number of harder shelled 2-part polyurethanes, so, it is tough stuff. A little bit more expensive than I was looking for, but not too crazy. Probably about $500-600 out the door for a good paint job. The advantage for the Pettit is it’s less expensive, easier to apply and would be less total weight on the airplane after painting, albeit slightly more difficult to repair and maintain afterwards (doesn’t blend quite as easily as the Epifanes).

With either system I can still shoot some auto paint on top of it for some cool accents. Still, a fair bit more research to do though before I make my final choice.

Ok, back to some “real” airplane building!

 

Chapter 22 – A lighter EZ day . . .

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First off, I want to apologize for the first two pics being out of focus.  It’s hard to tell sometimes how they look on the phone screen until later on.  I think there’s plenty enough detail to get the idea of what I’m on about with these pics though.

I started off today wiring up the remaining cavities in the P5 connector, which routes all the wires for the pilot Infinity control stick grip.  The proof is in the pudding when completing these bigger wiring tasks, as so too it is when you finally get down to wiring up these connectors to the end components.  I spent a fair amount of time working over the pinout diagrams beforehand to make sure they were as spot-on as possible, but when the wiring starts –like any best laid plans– things change. Wiring sizes, wiring colors, wire size or color availability on-hand, routing, etc.

In addition, since my new nose gear system is operational, I’ve been scavenging the longer, terminated wires off of the old nose gear wiring harness to use in both the P5 (and P4) connectors.  This changes the wire colors sometimes since re-utilizing good terminated wires that may have a different random color than the first random color I chose is more important to me than sticking to an arbitrary random color!  To be fair, some colors (power & ground) are a bit more sacrosanct to me, but the other random stuff I swap out in a heartbeat.

As you can imagine, there are a lot of rabbit holes to chase down to get all the wiring accounted for in these harnesses.  With the P5 (control stick) and P4 (throttle) connectors being two behemoths in this wiring system, they really do interface with a lot of system end components. For example, although not a jaw-dropping number, if you look at the wires (there’s 3) in the lower left corner of the pic below of the associated Trio Pro Pilot Autopilot wiring harness, one goes to the P4 connector and the other two are terminated together into the P5 connector.  To terminate these wires, a general idea of the routing and a quick mockup is in order to figure out the length. Obviously the length doesn’t have to be perfect, but longer is always better (EZ’er) than shorter.

After figuring out, verifying, and finalizing all the wiring connections, terminations & routing on the P5 connector, I then set my sights on the P4 connector.  It too deals with a myriad of electrical system end components in and around the panel, including Triparagon-mounted items, GNS480 GPS, and even the Landing Brake (see below).  It took me a bit of time to verify the connections on these wires as well, but I confirmed all that was good, and tweaked a few things that had been superseded yet not annotated (by me!).

All in all it was a good day, and I’m really glad to have knocked these two connectors off of the list of prerequisite items that need to get completed before I start on the nose top.  To be certain, in each connector there are a few wires that I actually didn’t mount into the actual connector cavities.  However, I did cut all those wires to length and terminated them, so they are ready to go.  This might help explain why you don’t see the wires wrapped with flightline tape nor any of the cable clamps mounted.

One thing that finalizing the P4 connector wiring above allowed me to do with minimal extra effort was to test out the operations of the Landing Brake using the throttle-mounted landing brake switch.  I haven’t actually run the landing brake in (I think) going on almost 5 years now!  So, to knock some of that rust off . . .  here goes:

I do have about a half dozen connectors to terminate on the end unit side (mostly on the roll trim relay board), which I plan on getting to later tonight or earlier tomorrow.  I’ll also be mounting some Adel clamps and wire-securing hardpoints in the avionics bay (area between the panel and F22) tomorrow as well.

 

Chap’s 13/22/25 – More wiring & painting

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To start out this post right, I thought I’d show you my new environmentally friendly electric engine install with its high efficiency 3-bladed prop (no, NOT a Catto!).

You can see this will save me a ton of weight and I’ll probably be the first Long-EZ that has NO aft CG problem!  HA!

Ok, all kidding aside, I started off today writing out & organizing my required task list for the next couple of days.  I decided to continue the work that Marco and I had started on –the P5 connector (stick grip)– and knock out another 5-6 wires.

One of those wires in that connector is the wire that goes from the taxi light switch to the taxi light actuator relay in the nose (RL011).  I terminated the wire with a pin and then quickly realized that I was supposed to have TWO (2) wires in that pin terminal: 1) one going to relay RL011 and, 2) another going to the “TAXI LIGHT” LED indicator on my panel.

Being cheap and not wanting to waste a pin terminal, I decided that instead of cutting off the pin and reterminating the wire, that I would simply find the point on the wire that I had just run that was physically closest to where the taxi light ON LED indicator would be located.  I then stripped away the insulator on the wire I had just run, cut a new 22AWG brown wire with blue stripe, and solder-spliced it into place.

Since these wires both carry positive current, I covered the solder splice joint with a nice long piece of red shrink tube.

I then decided to terminate the other end of the brown & blue wire with a mini-connector that came with the LED indicator lights.  I realized that I had not finished identifying all the LED indicators, so I took a few minutes to update the info on my panel switches, indicator lights, LEDs, components page.  I then took another 15 minutes, cut up the labels I had printed out quite a while back and labeled each of the LED indicator lights.  With these minute tasks out of the way, I then terminated the brown & blue wire and slipped it into the mini terminal.

I then annotated the wiring label IDs on the new nose gear diagram for the Nose Gear Up Transit and Nose Gear Down Transit LED indicators.  I quickly printed out some labels for those wires, grabbed my stuff and took it all down to the shop to label and terminate these 4 wires.

After I cut these wires (that come out of the P2 connector) to a more workable length, I then labeled each one with the appropriate label [these were peel & stick labels since I’m currently out of the heat shrink labels].  I then terminated a socket onto the end of each wire and mounted them into their respective mini connectors.

I then tested out the gear up transit and gear down transit LED indicator lights as you can see in the very short video below (sorry, I didn’t get a shot of the LED indicator mini terminals).

I then spent a decent amount of time sanding down the perpetual painting project from hell: the nose tool box lid.  This thing has given me an amazing amount of grief in trying to simply get it painted black… to the point of being comical.  I also sanded down the GPS antenna cover that will sit atop the pilot head rest.  It too has presented a fair number of challenges.  I’m hoping over the next week to get these darn things knocked out!

Before I actually started sanding & priming the 2 items above I found about 6 pinholes that had crept back up on the surface of the aft NG30 cover, so I filled those with tiny dabs of Metal Glaze.  I then went on to sand and prime the lid and cover above.

Well, lo and behold there were a few more pinholes that I hadn’t noticed in the shop light, until I took the aft NG30 cover outside. I then whipped up a tiny bit more Metal Glaze and repeated the process (it’s very workable in 20 min, versus the long cure time for epoxy).

Finally, after messing around with the items above for a good bit of time, I was able to do a final EZ sand down of the aft NG30 cover, give it a good bath in Simple Green, and hit it with 3 coats of gloss white paint.

Tomorrow I have another friend coming over, so it may be a very light build day, which is ok because it will allow time for this stuff to cure longer.  I will push forward to finish all my nose-related components, including the electrical system stuff of course, to get them all knocked out so I can move forward on the wheel pants and upper nose build.

Chapter 22 & 25 – Done, Done & Done!

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Today I got a few things checked off the list.

First, I finished constructing a micro spreader to hopefully accelerate the finishing of the aircraft surface in prep for painting when the time comes.

Here’s a shot of the actual bottom plate working surface.  You can see I used 2 counter sunk aluminum rivets per bracket to hold the bottom spreader plate to the 4 individual brackets.  I figured 2 rivets per bracket would be enough since the primary force on the spreader plate is from the top as it pushes the micro over the aircraft skin.  If there is any issue I can of course beef up the bracket attach points.

Next, I got this pic from Marco showing my finished Nose Gear AEM box and a United Airlines bear he picked up for my little 7 year old buddy (a friend’s daughter) who loves flying.

Finally, the box Marco 3D printed for me for the Nose Gear RCU had a slight blemish on the lid, so I’ll hope he’ll forgive me for me filling it in a bit and painting the lid black.  Here’s the finished Nose Gear RCU box ready for mounting into the aircraft.  I will of course have to terminate the wires on the “B” side of the connector.

With my bridge sander, micro spreader and RCU box distraction projects out of the way, I can now get back to my list of electrical system related taskers that need to get knocked out.

 

Chapter 25 – Finishing Tools

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Today I drilled the U-channel on the Harbor Freight handle base to allow me to mount it to the bridge sander.  Before I bolted it all together though, I trimmed the inboard edges of the two cross supports at a sharp angle, and trimmed down the height of the U-channel brackets that hold the handle in place so that there would be no interference by the handle of the sander’s operation.

After all that was done, I bolted it all together and tested it out.  Looks like it will work great!

As you may be able to tell in the pics, I mounted some 32 grit peel-n-stick sandpaper to the bottom plate, and it fit just about as perfect as it can get.

Thus, the bridge sander construction is complete and this baby is operational!

I then got to work on constructing the micro spreader.  I cleaned up all the brackets by filing down the edges.  I then measured, drilled and mounted the brackets to the micro spreader base with 2 aluminum rivets at each bracket.

In this shot below you should get a decent shot of the rivets that are holding the brackets to the base.

Here’s the underside of the spreader base, with the 2 rivets per bracket visible.

It’s a bit late and I didn’t want to make any more loud noises building this thing, so I called it a night and mocked up the micro spreader to see what it will look like when I finish it tomorrow.

That’s all for now folks . . .

 

Chapter 22 – Nose Gear AEM Box

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Here’s the latest status on the Nose Gear Auto Extension Module (AEM) that will replace Jack Wilhelmson’s original AEX feature.  First off, I sent this pic to Marco to help show him why I had a requirement that the AEM box be 1.8″ or less: since the AEM box will be mounted in the old AEX box spot, where I have a notch in the top aft side of my NG30 cover that is just a hair wider/deeper than 1.8″.

After a number of discussions back & forth with Marco on the particular specs of the AEM box he was able to generate these fantastic renderings of the box.

Here’s the initial rendering.

Then one with the lid and raised letter labeling.

One of the aft, left and top side.

Finally, one showing the internal standoffs for the two airspeed switches and mounting screws.  As you can see, he has included the 15-pin D-Sub connector in the renderings as well.

In the next few days Marco will 3D print this AEM box when he gets a chance.  I just really have to say that everything for the new nose gear wiring & AEX system is going exceedingly well!

 

Chapter 22 – Fake it ’til you make it!

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With the weather still not up to par for flying on the days I’ve been available, I’ve been working to get more stuff in the coffers for the eventual final push on this build.  I received an order from Mouser with everything but the Laser Altimeter that I’ll need to implement Marc Zeitlin’s new nose gear system AEX mod, combined with Jack Wilhelmson’s original emergency backup battery feature.  After sorting through a myriad of revisions on the melded, morphed version that falls between Marc’s new system with Jack’s old system, I think the new AEX with battery backup and emergency extend is about the best version it can be.

There are some tradeoffs of course with this new system, and some of that will be in weight.  Although I guesstimate it’s not huge, I’m thinking this new system will be a bit heavier with the required laser altimeter and beefy relays in the mix.  To offset some of the added weight effect, I’m mounting these new monster relays in an enclosed box on the left, aft side of the Napster bulkhead.  That should help a tad with moving the CG ever so slightly forward.

Speaking of weight, I also received two new brass fittings for the oil pump from Buly.  We actually talked a couple of weeks ago and he said he was going to ship them out, but understandably got sidetracked with the sale of his Cozy.  Sad to see him sell it… yet another one of the Ol’ Guard out of the game.

Obviously these fittings are somewhat unique, thus the reason Buly sent them to me rather than just have me order some off of ACS.  Nick Ugolini did recommend that I acquire fittings for 5/8″ tubing, but Buly had these 1/2″ fittings at the ready, and I figured 1/2″ will do just fine.   Maybe these will save a bit on weight with a little less oil coursing through the heating system lines.  Below you can see that I test fitted these new fittings on the oil pump.  Since these brutes are brass, they of course are significantly heavier than if they were aluminum.  But hey, they fit, are in hand and will allow me to have heat in my airplane!

Since I also got a rather sizable ACS order in as well, I decided it was time to take a break from my logistical duties and knock out something that I had started quite a number of months ago.  I had already spent quite a few hours at the beginning of the week logging a bunch of purchases in my tracking spreadsheet . . . and I’m talking stuff from last August, so I wanted to get a bit organized.  My goal before the weather gets warmer, when I can start back on doing some low cost (read: sans high heater settings) layups is to get my recent flurry of research, documentation and instruction manuals put away in my build HQ area (my living room!).  I also spent a good half-hour today doing a cursory cleanup of the shop, but another hour is in order before it will be ready for production again.

Ok, so my latest mini project was to assemble a bunch of pieces of wood that I cut late last summer to create a cockpit mockup & simulator to allow me test the ergonomics, placement, switchology and operation of my avionics and instruments.  This harks back to my original fuselage mock-up to check for how the plane would feel in its stock dimensions (remember, I widened the cockpit 1.4″).  Now, this version will enable me to mount all my current avionics, plan for new ones, and give me a really close estimate on final wiring requirements for all my panel components.  This latter reason is why I made this cockpit simulator to allow for the installation of the Triparagon.

When the Triparagon is installed I’ll wire up the panel and fire up the components not only to do a good ops check on them, but also to configure them in the panel.  Also, this cockpit mockup will also allow me to finalize any wiring required on the Triparagon.

You may note looking at the pics above that the wood looks a little ratty and non-uniform, and you’d be right!  So far, this entire mockup has been made of completely scrap wood.

Below you can see the right side armrest.  Since I won’t be mounting my second Infinity control stick into the actual airplane, it will get mounted here (although I probably won’t wire it up) into the right side armrest.

On the left side I’ll use the cockpit mockup to figure out exactly where the throttle will get mounted, and how everything else will be configured on the armrest.  You may note the different gray colors of the two armrests, which is me using these as paint color swatches to help me decide the color (or colors!) of my interior cockpit paint.

I’m accomplishing this cockpit simulator mockup construction in 6 phases, and right now I just finished Phase IV.  Phase V will be cutting and installing the avionics in the instrument panel, and Phase VI will be configuring the two separate armrests with the control stick and throttle.

As you can see, once I get this guy up and running, I’ll be able to test out different component and switch locations no matter what’s going on with the actual cockpit.  In addition, this mockup will really come in handy while I’m sanding away on my Long-EZ in prepping it for paint, all the while ensuring that my eletro-whizzies remain dust free!

As you can see, I’m slowly moving towards getting back onto the build.  I do need to really try to knock out this Instrument rating though, although the pace of instruction is very much glacial at the moment!

 

Chapter 22 – Success!

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I got word this morning that my IFR training is back on (there was an issue with my FBO and Part 141 training… all clear now).

In the mean time, I had two separate phone calls today with Rich at Aircraft Extras, Inc. to finally get these AG6 warning annunciators programmed!  After following some instructions in an email that didn’t work (my fault, I entered a data field incorrectly) I called Rich.  He talked me through some steps and helped me understand a couple of the data fields well enough that I got off the phone to tackle it all again.  Well, the umpteenth time is a charm because it worked!!!  Finally!  So I spent the next 6 hours programming and documenting every parameter for each warning screen.  I then did an operational check on each alarm screen by inputting the amount of voltage that it needed to see to kick off the alarm. Thus, now each alarm screen works exactly as it should… (yeah!)

It was a bit tough there for a while on getting these AG6s programmed, but I’m really glad I stuck to the plan for using them.  I can now say that all my major warning annunciations (non-EFIS) are good to go!  One other thing I’ll point out on my AG6 configuration is that on almost all of them I’ve turned off the “Green OK” screen so that I get just the warning screen & only when it alarms.  Clearly, on the canopy, landing brake and nose gear I wanted positive feedback of what was going on with these components.  I’ll also point out that only those issues that would result in an immediate safety of flight issue, damage to the aircraft/engine, or fire are denoted with a red color.  The amber alarms screens show up clearly visible and are an attention getter as well, but I wanted the really bad stuff (obviously, my opinion here) depicted with red.  Finally, I’ll note that the green screens only come alive when the action they represent has been 100% completed.  For the canopy, note that it doesn’t say “Canopy Closed,” but rather “CANOPY LOCKED.”  Same for the landing brake being stowed away and the nose gear extended all the way down.  I actually had a screen stating “gear locked” (since it solved my double gear up/down alarm entry … see below), but after a bit of thinking I decided that I wanted to denote “GEAR DOWN” since to me that communicates more succinctly where the gear is compared to “GEAR LOCKED”.

Moreover, Marc Zeitlin just released his new version of the nose gear automatic extension system (AEX) which streamlined the signal output from the nose gear system with a single wire to each nose gear status indicator light.  What I had to take into account however was that with these one wire outputs it meant one input for the respective gear up and gear down signals.   This meant I had to parse out the normally paired GEAR UP and GEAR DOWN warning screens and put them on separate inputs.  Well, the way the AG6 works is that each alarm has a specific screen code, and the screen code can only be used once in the system since it points all the data to that code.  Well, luckily I communicated what I wanted and Rich talked me through how to “trick the system” by using all the descriptive parameters of the GEAR UP/GEAR DOWN reference number under another unique alarm code (I overwrote the vacuum pump alarm code since I definitely will not be installing one of those in my plane).  With two separate GEAR UP/GEAR DOWN alarms on Annunciator #1, all I had to do (yeah, right!) was turn off the alarm screen (red or green) that I didn’t want to see for each separate GEAR UP/DOWN alarm.

[As a point of note, there were 2 EZ workarounds for the above issue even if Rich hadn’t helped me out.  As I mentioned before, I could have used “GEAR LOCKED” which is a different screen number.  Also, I could have programmed one gear condition on AG6 #1 and the other on AG6 #2, although I did want my final gear positions annunciations in the same place… ALTHOUGH, to further convolute this: my “GEAR UP TRANSIT” and “GEAR DN TRANSIT” indicator lights (not AG6) will not be colocated on the panel so that peripheral vision and color tell me gear moving up or gear moving down … nuff said!]

Ok, speaking of Marc Zeitlin’s new AEX, I’m starting to actually receive my component orders to implement that system.  I have yet to order the actual Laser Altimeter, but pretty much everything else is on its way.  Below is the 12V-to-5V converter that I just got that is needed to drive the 5V laser altimeter.  I wasn’t sure which one to get so I just bought the same exact one that Marc has since his system is working.  Hey, if it works, don’t mess with success . . .  right?!

The other components I got in (as if I didn’t have enough of these things!) were 2 different airspeed switches.  The one to the left is a Normally Closed airspeed switch and used to sense when the aircraft is less than 90 KIAS.  The one to the right is a Normally Open airspeed switch that senses when the aircraft is traveling 40 knots or faster.  These will be installed in series so both parameters must hold true for the AEX to function (along with the throttle being retarded to <10% power and the laser altimeter reading less than approximately 350 ft AGL).

Marco had a question on my last blog post regarding Marc Z’s system that I wanted to clear up here.  Here’s Marco’s question:

“What happens if all those [AEX] conditions are met and the gear auto-deploys, then you find yourself a little low on the glide path, and add more than 10% power to correct just before you land? Will the landing gear go back up? Or does it stay down after deployment?”

 

This is an excellent point, and I should have clarified this in my last post.  The answer is NO, the gear will not go back up because the AEX circuit latches.  Only by cycling the gear switch all the way down and back up will it then raise the nose gear on the command of the pilot to very specifically override the AEX system.  Otherwise, the AEX will keep the gear deployed until the pilot either lands the plane or cycles the gear switch toggle to intentional raise the gear.  I’m glad Marco asked this question so I could clarify this point!

Depending on weather my Instrument training schedule is up in the air.  As for the build, as time allows I have about 4-5 electrical system tasks I want to finish up.  Then I plan on seriously getting back to some glassing, including (don’t laugh!) . . . the wheel pants!

Chapter 22 – “Early upgrades” . . .

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One good thing about not getting this plane built on schedule is that it allows for me to implement really good upgrade mods that would normally mean downtime & increased complexity on a flying bird.  In other words, I can take just a scant bit of extra time and roll these new mods into the build plan in whatever area before I ever start in that specific endeavor.  Two such mods that I’ll discuss below are the electric nose gear system and the heating system.

First off, I finally did a bit of research and decided on the style of latch I wanted for my oil dipstick access door on my cowling.  I like the way the one below operates so I picked one up from a guy off of Ebay.  For those curious it’s a Hartwell H2868-1.  I like this specific version since most of the ones that are this style simply have a large square plate with a hole in each corner for mounting.  With the wings of this “H” style it will allow me to bend those just a hair to match any curvature I may have on the oil dipstick access door, which in turn, matches the curvature of the upper engine cowling.  In addition, the main reason I wanted a latch-for-the-hatch is to preclude the complexity and pain of having to use a screwdriver to undo any number of CamLocs just to check the oil!  Plus, as with everything we do, I simply think it looks cool… ha!

I don’t normally include this type of stuff on my blog, but since the use of my laptop DIRECTLY impacts my airplane building I thought I’d make an exception this time.  So my MacBook cord finally gave up the ghost.  No worries, I’ll just pop down to the store sez me to myself and pick up another one . . . how expensive can they be?  Well!!! $78 is how expensive they can be.  Sorry, not gonna happen.  Thus, I fired up the soldering iron and soldered what few molecules of the outer shielding I could find, built a bit of a solder bridge (that’s always fun!) and slapped some heat shrink on it.  And Voila!  Works like a champ!

Now, back to real business.

My build buddies apparently understand that I like bright shiny objects and will take off after them with aplomb if any catch my fancy.  Well, Dave Berenholtz from OZ obviously understands this too well and sent an email asking me if I was aware of what Marc Zeitlin was cooking up in his evil lair.  Apparently Marc was dissatisfied with the standard operations of the Automatic Extension (AEX) feature of Jack Wilhelmson’s EZNoseLift electric nose gear system.  The AEX simply provides an automatic feature of retracting the nose gear after takeoff once the airspeed is above 90 knots, and conversely, will extend the nose gear if the airspeed is less than 90 knots.  Short and sweet.

Well, Marc undertook about a year-long project to refine the AEX system, not just for Jack’s system, but any aircraft actuator-centric system (I’ll note for clarity that in Marc’s quest, apparently the “X” got lopped off the end of “AEX” and now it’s just the AE system). IMO, Marc’s system is fantastic in that by adding another airspeed switch, a throttle “microswitch,” and a laser altimeter, it provides a comprehensive set of parameters that must all be true for the Auto Extend to activate and deploy the nose landing gear:

1: Throttle less than 10% open
2. Speed greater than 40 knots (user programmable)
3. Speed less than 90 knots (user programmable)
4. Altitude at or below 350 ft. AGL

Ok!  Wow, this is truly fantastic news for us Canardians!  I printed out Marc’s description of the system and the electrical diagram and got to work since I wanted to assess how this would integrate into my system.

Initially, this all seemed too good to be true!  Where was the catch?  Well, as always seems to be the case there were two specific problems with this new system: the first in relation to my build and the other, a general operational requirement that I desired, which was offered in Jack’s original system but removed in Marc’s modification.

First, the operational requirement:  Marc’s version offers no backup battery capability since Marc personally uses the ratchet drive backup system to extend the gear in case of an electrical failure.  Jack sells his EZNoseLift systems with the option of the mechanical ratchet drive backup -OR- a small 1.2A backup battery that will lower the gear sans ship’s power if the electrical system fails.  Hmmm….  Since I have the backup battery, this was not a good thing in regards to my system.

Next, as for the integration into my build?  Marc’s version requires a 3PDT switch to control the gear up & down. My already terminated and installed throttle-mounted SPDT nose gear switch is in the “done” column and is perfect for driving Jack’s EZNoseLift system. Moreover, since this is an F-15 throttle handle, how this rare switch is mounted and its metal hat switch form factor make it very difficult to just pull, plug and replace with another switch.  Moreover, I really have to say that I love my throttle handle just the way I’ve now configured it!  On the pic of my throttle handle below you can see (mid-side handle) the stepped-hat nose gear up/down switch.

Also, one thing was clear as I stared down this road of integrating the new parts of Marc’s upgraded system while keeping the best part of Jack’s current system, and that was I really needed to truly understand and have comprehensive knowledge of how both these systems worked.  To be honest, with so many versions of Jack’s system out there, I wasn’t even sure what my switch panel looked like!  I went down to the shop and snapped a pic of the switch panel face . . .

. . .  and the actual wiring of the switches on the backside of the panel in order to identify the correct switches and wiring circuits.

After pondering my gear switch issue for about a day, out of the blue I had a Eureka moment: Duh! just swap out Marc’s required 3PDT switch with a 3PDT relay… right? Problem solved.  Uh, but wait a minute sports fans.  With this being a CANARD gear switch, a problem is presented in simply swapping a switch out with a relay since there’s that pesky “-OFF-” position on our gear switch that doesn’t translate over to a “middle position” between N.O. and N.C. on a relay.  Obviously, on canards we don’t simply use a binary, all-the-way up or down gear position (except for TOs/landings), but use the gear switch to position the nose in a myriad of heights off the ground when parked. Thus, my requirement was to be able to hit the nose gear up/down position, have it run up/down for a few seconds and then move the switch to the “OFF” position to stop the gear from moving any forward.  Again, with most aircraft you simply have an up or down gear position, but we Canardians apparently like to be eccentric! 

I was at the juncture of simply knowing that I wanted to replace Marc’s required 3PDT switch with a relay that I could then subsequently control with my throttle mounted SPDT switch. But how?  Not smart enough in the ways of electrons, I posted my dilemma onto the AeroElectric Connection forum.  Within an hour Charlie England started off his response with a question that gave me my answer: “How about 2 separate 3 pole relays?” Yes, one relay would control up and the other down.  When my throttle-mounted switch was in the middle OFF position, neither relay would be powered on to do any action so the system would be “at rest” . . . or OFF.  I had found my middle position!

[Just as a point of note, since Marc’s 3PDT switch positions were wired to create 2-N.C. states and 1-N.O. state in the up position, and opposite in the down position, it allowed me in the end to only need one DPDT relay and one SPDT relay to replace the 3PDT switch.]

With the switch issue taken care of, now it was time to tackle probably the biggest electrical challenge I’ve ever faced.  I had asked Marc & Jack, et al, on the Cozy forum if there was a way to wire back in the 1.2A backup battery into Marc’s design to provide a means of getting the gear down if a total electrical failure were to happen.  I had some back and forth on a type-of-relay question I had, but nothing on the backup battery except an expressed desire by some to see that “put back into the system.”  With no real response, and having one solved problem (the new AEX system) creating a new problem (no backup emergency gear extend feature), I figured it was time for the proverbial: “Well, if’n you want somethin’ done yer gonna hafta do it yurself!” (Said in Ken Curtis’ Festus voice from “Gunsmoke”).

I spent a day and a half deconstructing both Marc and Jack’s respective systems, and then ala “Tony Stark” (without the flare, billions of dollars, Hollywood CGI or Jarvis) I melded the backup battery feature from Jack’s system into Marc’s new design. Thus, after chasing imaginary electrons around on paper over a couple of days I was finally able to meld the backup battery and emergency gear extension feature back into this promising new & improved system!

After verifying that my new combined design worked, I then cleaned off all my specific extraneous system info to then submit a generic copy onto the Cozy forum.  I received word back from Marc Zeitlin that it would work as per my (actually his & Jack’s) design, with a number of “why-didn’t-you-use-this-component-vs-that-one” type questions, which is great since that’s how system designs are optimized.  So now I have some system design “homework” from Marc that I will attempt to iron out.

Regardless, doing nothing else from this point on (besides buy all the required components!) results in a new baseline electric nose gear system that provides a very usable AEX system and allows me to incorporate the backup battery feature/emergency gear extend feature.

If you’re curious, here’s a final thought on reasons I chose the battery backup system vs. the mechanical ratchet wrench backup gear deployment system: the battery weighs considerably less, takes up no panel space as does the mechanical unit, and most importantly –for me– if I’m working any non-standard issue while in the process of landing, I don’t want to be messing around with a ratchet (which itself weighs as much as the small backup battery) and spending time getting the gear down when the flick of a switch will do it for me.  Finally, a very important thing to consider that I learned while flying in Marco’s Long-EZ is that IF YOU DROP SOMETHING on the floor, it is no longer something of use to you!  And unless you tie off that ratchet handle, it may end up being nothing more than added weight in your airplane while you WISH you had a means to get your nose gear down [just saying . . . IMO!]

Now, on to my final topic of this LONG post.

I had a good discussion with both Buly Aliev and Nick Ugolini regarding the integration of Buly’s oil heater system pump and system design.  I have lots to think about still on this system, but one thing I did take away from my discussion with Nick is the heat output is best realized by controlling the speed that the oil pump is pumping in hot oil into the system.  Thus, in able to control the speed of the oil pump, one method utilizes a PWM controller switch, so that’s just what I picked up.  I can now say, “Behold, the oil pump and its PWM controller switch!” (not that I will necessarily, but I can if I want . . . !)

That’s all for now folks!