Just eight days after all the boxes showed up from Stein, Mikey is back in the air with a new suite of avionics! Since I really enjoy building, and particularly systems work, I have never used a pre-built harness before, but due to time constraints imposed by our impending move, it made sense to have the guys up in Minnesota build us a “Central Nervous System” this time. We’d already removed the previous avionics and cut the panel to match the new modular blank when the boxes arrived – the destruction phase took a couple of evening’s work.
Mechanical installation of radio racks and the mysterious black boxes took a day and a half, and installing the harness itself was a couple more sessions. Little stuff, like wiring up the new annunciators, adding breakers and fuses, etc. accounted for a couple of days, and Louise spent the better part of Saturday underneath the panel tidying up all of the wire bundles I had temporarily tacked together with cable ties (the harness was beautifully tied by Doyle at Steinair, but we needed to secure it to existing structure and aircraft wiring, of course).
We had the airplane re-weighed and ready to fly on Saturday night, and took it for a quick trip around the pattern. It was quick because I had fat-fingered the “Sensor type” for the CHT thermocouples, selecting K instead of J, so as we climbed out and saw CHT’s climbing over 500, we figured a closed pattern was a good idea (I had removed the left Mag to install the RPM sensor, so I immediately suspected I had honked up the timing ….). An uneventful landing was followed by some head scratching, timing checks, and an “aha!” moment when I realized the timing was good, but the sensor type was not.
Two test flights on Sunday proved that (with a couple of minor exceptions), everything is working as it should. The calibration with the new AHRS modules was a breeze, magnetometer checks were perfect (mounted on the aft fuselage deck), and this morning I watched the new autopilot shoot an LPV approach to our neighboring field with nary a bobble. I really like the new autopilot control panel – it seems more intuitive than the softkeys on the G3X screens.
Here’s the panel all powered up. We have a nice 3 – 1/8” hole on the left for a backup ADI – it is all wired for a Gemini, but while we’re waiting on that, we figured it would be a good chance to try out the snap-in panel mount for the D1, and fly that for a little while.
We’ve still got some labels to make, limits to set, I have to chase down an OAT problem, and then we can start climbing the learning curve for the 650…but Mikey now has an IFR GPS capability!
(The start of the process was documented at: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=100259)
Paul
Mechanical installation of radio racks and the mysterious black boxes took a day and a half, and installing the harness itself was a couple more sessions. Little stuff, like wiring up the new annunciators, adding breakers and fuses, etc. accounted for a couple of days, and Louise spent the better part of Saturday underneath the panel tidying up all of the wire bundles I had temporarily tacked together with cable ties (the harness was beautifully tied by Doyle at Steinair, but we needed to secure it to existing structure and aircraft wiring, of course).
We had the airplane re-weighed and ready to fly on Saturday night, and took it for a quick trip around the pattern. It was quick because I had fat-fingered the “Sensor type” for the CHT thermocouples, selecting K instead of J, so as we climbed out and saw CHT’s climbing over 500, we figured a closed pattern was a good idea (I had removed the left Mag to install the RPM sensor, so I immediately suspected I had honked up the timing ….). An uneventful landing was followed by some head scratching, timing checks, and an “aha!” moment when I realized the timing was good, but the sensor type was not.
Two test flights on Sunday proved that (with a couple of minor exceptions), everything is working as it should. The calibration with the new AHRS modules was a breeze, magnetometer checks were perfect (mounted on the aft fuselage deck), and this morning I watched the new autopilot shoot an LPV approach to our neighboring field with nary a bobble. I really like the new autopilot control panel – it seems more intuitive than the softkeys on the G3X screens.
Here’s the panel all powered up. We have a nice 3 – 1/8” hole on the left for a backup ADI – it is all wired for a Gemini, but while we’re waiting on that, we figured it would be a good chance to try out the snap-in panel mount for the D1, and fly that for a little while.
We’ve still got some labels to make, limits to set, I have to chase down an OAT problem, and then we can start climbing the learning curve for the 650…but Mikey now has an IFR GPS capability!
(The start of the process was documented at: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=100259)
Paul
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