RV-6 rebuild project in Palm Springs CA

[Radioflyer]

Originally Posted by jamlip

Today's view from the hangar...
...
The neighbor is a Fox News kind of guy, so he enjoyed the fact that the left wing had screwed everything up. What a gift.

I haven't tightened any of them yet. The bolts that go through the reinforcing plate are close tolerance. The ones that go through the rest of the spar are standard.
...

Haha...I'm sure your Fox friend knows how essential that left wing is

Those pics are very helpful for me to visualize the wing re-fit. I have the plans, but nothing beats a real picture. BTW, your panel looks great, highly functional yet simple.

[jamlip]

Fantastic - big help, guys. Thank you!

I'm ordering those PDF plans from Vans - I also need to check details on two brackets that I think tie the floor stiffeners to the spar.

[JonJay]

Originally Posted by jamlip

Fantastic - big help, guys. Thank you!

I'm ordering those PDF plans from Vans - I also need to check details on two brackets that I think tie the floor stiffeners to the spar.

Each stiffener gets tied to the spar with a simple angle bracket. These where not depicted in early plans, or folks looked passed them often. If they are not tied to the spar for support, you can get weeping rivets and even cracks on the bottom skin. Important to install them.

[jamlip]

Originally Posted by JonJay

Each stiffener gets tied to the spar with a simple angle bracket. These where not depicted in early plans, or folks looked passed them often. If they are not tied to the spar for support, you can get weeping rivets and even cracks on the bottom skin. Important to install them.

Thanks. So tie all the brackets to the spar bolts? I noticed witness marks on the middle two, but haven't checked the others.

My aircraft has a false floor, so the ribs are slightly different to others I have seen.

I also plan to build a center console running from the bulkhead to the tank selector, between the middle two stiffeners.

[jamlip]

Not a great deal of progress today. Went to the airport and kind of messed around.

Talked to Harry in the hangar behind mine about the autopilot control shaft joint binding up. He restores DeHavilland stuff (currently a RCAF Chipmunk) and has just tons of hardware odds and sods. I explained I was looking for a washer with a smaller diameter-to-hole ratio, so the joint could sit at more of an angle than the standard AN washer was allowing, and managed to find some AN3 spring washers which did the job. He has this fantastic voice, and sort of wanders around mildly freaking out over the volume of stuff he has accumulated over the years. He's great.

Shortly after getting that sorted, a white GMC SUV thing rolls up to the hangar. It's unusual to see anyone at PSP, so I hopped out of the aeroplane to say hi. Got chatting, and he turned out to be the owner of Basler, the turbine DC-3 guys in Oshkosh. Another nice old dude. By his own admission he was into junk, which I think is why he stopped to look at my project.

One of the things I love about aviation here in the US is that it's a kind of leveller - people who love aviation love that you love it too (see also: France), whereas my experience in the UK was quite the opposite.

Anyway, back to business...

The elevator does not have the F-611E down stop fitted. This is weird to me, because the quality of construction is what sold me on the aircraft - it's nicely put together, especially for an older build.

This is the crank hitting the rear bulkhead. It gives 30 degrees up, which right on the limit as specified by Vans.



This is the crank hitting... nothing, because the stabilizer skin binds with the elevator. It gives 25 degrees of down, and I think the minimum is 20 degrees.



So I need to sort that out.

Good news is, the rudder does have stops fitted, so I don't need to fit the Flyboys plastic thing.

[jamlip]

Whilst I was in Harry's hangar, searching through his vast collection of washers and whatnot, I mentioned that I needed to go buy some wire so I could finish installing my intercom and radio. No need, he proclaimed, showing me a huge stack of Tefzel that was left over from some sort of B-something bomber restoration. Most of it was elephantine stuff, but I did find a roll of triple-core shielded 20-guage. Game on.

The aircraft came with a bunch of Narco gear - Radio, Nav, GS etc. I have a Narco radio as a Com 2 in my RV-4 and it is absolute garbage, so I sold it all on eBay. Narco; "Not and Aviation Radio Company". I've heard it so many times.

If this thing flies nicely, and I decide to keep it, I'll fit a decent GPS Nav Com. For now, however, I have fitted a Becker AR-3201 (my future Com 2). They're great radios - super kleine und super Deutsche Qualitat.

I don't want to run a big expensive audio panel, so I bought a tiny AP-60 audio mixer to handle all the inputs. I had a Sigtronics SPA-4S kicking around, so that's my intercom.

The problem I'm having is, I'm not sure how to wire it all together.

Can anyone help? This is what I think I need to do (I'ver stripped-down the SPA-4S diagram to remove the stuff I'm not using)...



Becker AR-3201 Pinout

[jamlip]

Notes:

1. I presume I need to join pins 10 & 11 on the Becker.

2. Do I need to use the PTT on the Becker rather than the SPA-4S?

[penguin]

Becker 3201 is a great radio. Don't join 10 & 11, they are mic high & low - the drawing shows one is the shield of the other, you can use a twisted shielded pair (or 2 from a twisted shielded triple).

PTT is only grounding pin 12. Bear in mind 3201 was designed at least 25 years ago, things have moved on since then. Ignore the PTT on a headset (pin 5 on separate connector block). It doesn't matter if you take the PTT line back to the radio or use the line(s) from the intercom, it will all work the same, but the intercom will be better. Grounding the intercom white/red wire will open the pilot's mic (or the mic attached to the white/black wire) and grounding the white/blue wire will open the mic attached to the white/orange wire. There may even be some logic that gives the pilot (white/black) priority over the other headset.

Pete

[Radioflyer]

Jamlip, I'm pretty sure you are referring to the little circle around the mike wire (11). If so, that is symbol for the shield that surrounds that wire. So, no you do not join pins 10 and 11 on the Becker.

[jamlip]

Originally Posted by penguin

Becker 3201 is a great radio. Don't join 10 & 11, they are mic high & low - the drawing shows one is the shield of the other, you can use a twisted shielded pair (or 2 from a twisted shielded triple).

PTT is only grounding pin 12. Bear in mind 3201 was designed at least 25 years ago, things have moved on since then. Ignore the PTT on a headset (pin 5 on separate connector block). It doesn't matter if you take the PTT line back to the radio or use the line(s) from the intercom, it will all work the same, but the intercom will be better. Grounding the intercom white/red wire will open the pilot's mic (or the mic attached to the white/black wire) and grounding the white/blue wire will open the mic attached to the white/orange wire. There may even be some logic that gives the pilot (white/black) priority over the other headset.

Pete

Originally Posted by Radioflyer

Jamlip, I'm pretty sure you are referring to the little circle around the mike wire (11). If so, that is symbol for the shield that surrounds that wire. So, no you do not join pins 10 and 11 on the Becker.

Thank you both. Yes, I see the shielding now... not sure what I was thinking (it was late at night?).

Pete - if I, in the future, want to make the 3201 a Com 2 and add a nice GPS Nav Com unit as a Com 1, would it make more sense to use the PTT from the 3201 so that I can later add a switch to control whether I'm talking via Com 1 or Com 2?

The guy that sold me the radio was well against the switch idea and wanted me to use an audio panel. If all I'm aiming to do is switch the mic, I'd rather save a thousand bucks and not add weight to the aircraft.

(All this said, I'd probably only ever use Com 2 to listen to ATIS, so perhaps the better solution, down the line, would be to have the 3201 feeding into the AP-60 mixer, with PTT triggering the Com 1 only).