drill through VS ribs for conduit?

tvlawyer · #1 10-28-2006, 07:59 PM

I'm thinking of drilling a 1/2" hole through each of the VS ribs to insert a 1/2" pvc conduit, secured by rubber grommets at each rib, in case I want to add a VS cam some day. Anyone know a structural reason I shouldn't do this?

arffguy · #2 10-28-2006, 10:06 PM

A lot of RVs have a strobe light mounted in the top of the VS. I put some rubber grommets in mine through the tooling holes.

LettersFromFlyoverCountry · #3 10-29-2006, 04:25 PM

I drilled the holes, added bushings, and ran a string up there (and anchored it at each end) in case I ever want to pull wires through someday. My strobes will go on the rudder so I'm not really sure what I would do up there*, but I figure there's no harm in having options.

(* When I first started building, my goal was to light myself up like a 747 on final...I even thought about putting lights in to flood the tail as the big boys apparently do)

FlyerJumper · #4 10-29-2006, 06:49 PM

We did this very thing on the VS for our -10 (mod to top rib). We only had to drill a hole through the top rib since we passed the conduit through the lightening holes in the other two ribs. We used proseal to secure it at various places to the ribs and the front spar (pic on this page). I asked Van's prior to doing it and their response was "we've never thought of doing that, but don't see why there should be anything wrong with it". Based on the flying RV's I've seen with wire runs through the VS, and the fact that Van's didn't see any problem with it, I felt pretty comfortable with it. YMMV.