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12-18-2010, 06:57 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 1,788
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Static Ports
I am not happy with the very cheesy looking static port (pop rivet) Vans provides (along with a lot of other cheesy Vans provided stuff IMHO). I am planning to replace this with a real static port/ports. What is the consenses of those who have flying aircraft for the style of port and quantity, and most important, the accuracy?
Bill
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12-18-2010, 07:28 AM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Waco, Texas
Posts: 1,658
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Avery tools and SafeAir1 kit is what you want. Very nice kit.
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12-18-2010, 07:46 AM
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Dallas area
Posts: 10,768
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The "cheesy" pop rivet works as well as any and better than most.
__________________
Mel Asberry, DAR since the last century.
EAA Flight Advisor/Tech Counselor, Friend of the RV-1
Recipient of Tony Bingelis Award and Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award
USAF Vet, High School E-LSA Project Mentor.
RV-6 Flying since 1993 (sold)
<rvmel(at)icloud.com>
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12-18-2010, 07:51 AM
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VAF Moderator / Line Boy
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dayton, NV
Posts: 12,256
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They may look cheesy, but the purpose of static ports is get good, accurate static information to your instruments. The fact is that it takes hundreds and hundreds of hours of flight testing and tweaking a new airframe design to figure out a good static source, and once that has been done, you have to ask yourself if you really want to go through that again.
The truth is a "Real" static source is one that works - take a look at lots of different airplanes, and you'll find lots of different designs. Van's found out that the pop rivet works well. The forums are FULL of threads by people who have had problems with calibrating their ASI's going with other ideas.
I am absolutely not against experimentation, or looking for better solutions - but it's important to recognize that you can (not will, but "can") go through a lot of trial and error with this particular change.
On our current project, we once again use the pop rivets (took two minutes to install and set), but are using the quick-connect fittings sold by Stein and SafeAir to do all the plumbing - a very nice upgrade from the old white nylon fittings that tend to leak if you don't hold your mouth just right.
Consensus? I can give you two data points on our -6 (2500 hours) and -8 (1250 hours)that have pop rivet ports and dead-solid static readings to the instruments.
Paul
__________________
Paul F. Dye
Editor at Large - KITPLANES Magazine
RV-8 - N188PD - "Valkyrie"
RV-6 (By Marriage) - N164MS - "Mikey"
RV-3B - N13PL - "Tsamsiyu"
A&P, EAA Tech Counselor/Flight Advisor
Dayton Valley Airpark (A34)
http://Ironflight.com
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12-18-2010, 08:06 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: New Smyrna Beach, FL
Posts: 1,339
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I put very nice looking aftermarket static ports on my RV-10. They look great but I am still working to adjust them for accuracy. In general, I spared no expense on my airplane, but if I was doing it again, I would take Mel and Paul's advice and use the Van's supplied static ports. I did use the quick-connect fittings Paul references, and agree 100%. They are great.
Kevin Horton has some excellent articles published in Kitplane magazine in the past year about pitot and static systems.
exactly $.02 worth.
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David Maib
RV-10 N380DM
New Smyrna Beach, FL
VAF Paid 1/21/2020
"In '69 I was 21, and I called the road my own"
Jackson Browne
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12-18-2010, 09:08 AM
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Senior Curmudgeon
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Dayton Airpark, NV A34
Posts: 15,420
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I have the nice flush Safe Air ports-----project came with them already installed, and plumbed.
I remember reading more than once, where the flush ports induced an error to the static reading, and folks had to glue a washer on the fuse around the port to get things accurate.
As of yet, I havent gotten to that point in my test program, so I have no empirical info.
__________________
Mike Starkey
VAF 909
Rv-10, N210LM.
Flying as of 12/4/2010
Phase 1 done, 2/4/2011 
Sold after 240+ wonderful hours of flight.
"Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it."
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12-18-2010, 11:22 AM
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Oakland CA
Posts: 771
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one data point...
I have a heated pitot tube with the static ports on the tube as well. I have been calibrating my airspeed and there is a HUGE error in airspeed. I've made several attempts at a kluge fix and, while the airspeed is now within 2 1/2 kts at 160kts and 1 kt at 100kts, it indicates stall at 38 kts.
I am now down for annual and will install the standard static ports in the standard location and see if it's any better/easiear to calibrate with tape/washers etc. If not, I'll go back to the heated tube static source. Be very careful with calibrating airspeeds, no matter what your choice of static source is. A friend with the standard source needed to monkey with it too...
Jeremy Constant
7A 95hrs, down for annual and squawk fixes
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12-18-2010, 03:23 PM
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 1,788
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Wow, Interesting response. It does indeed sound as if those who have changed the ports to an aftermarket have had some issues, and those that used the provided ports do not. I guess that makes the decision easy. I will go ahead and upgrade to the stein fittings. I have enough things going on to not want to spend addtional time experimenting.
Thanks for all the input!
Bill
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12-18-2010, 04:13 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: USA
Posts: 1,499
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I installed the pop rivets a few weeks ago...
They actually look nice from the outside. Inside is a different story with the fish tank air line, tee, silicone glob, but I am positive it will work just fine. I have tried to stick with plans as much as possible to make the build quicker and less expensive.
__________________
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
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12-18-2010, 05:31 PM
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Brisbane Qld. Aust.
Posts: 2,271
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As Paul has correctly pointed out plenty have been down this road already, and those who haven't probably do not realise the errors they have, and should check!
The issue for me flying IFR is the altitude error created by a large static error
I first discovered it by wondering why I had the worlds slowest RV10 by -9knots. I researched here and found that static error was the issue so did the GPS box TAS test and sure enough the plane was as fast as it should be but the speed error meant I had a big static error, and altitude.
So I started by glueing a rivet head over the top of the static port.....Bingo! now I had the fastest RV10 on the planet, but of course that was now creating a lower static pressure, I filed edges and mucked around and could not get it right, so I looked at others with small fences so again just experimenting and by taping over one side and using a leaf blower down the side of the fuse looking for altimeter changes found that I had pretty much nailed it.
Went and test flew it with another GPS box and the TAS was within 1 knot and the altimetry was now consistent with the GPS (accounting for expected GPS error).
Now here is what I ended up with......and yes it is still that way. Was just an experiment but it works so as ugly as it is....it stays!
The fence is aluminium TIG welding wire rolled into that shape!
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