Throttle grip

[olyolson]

I’ve been working with Paul at 3dstickandrudder.com to design a good throttle grip for my RV-8. We’ve been through a couple design ideas and I think he’s come up with a great solution for the RV-8 throttle grip. It fits over the existing Vans grip, is secured in place with a built in anti rotation bracket and a screw that holds the grip securely in place on the vertical throttle shaft. A small hole is needed in the shaft for the screw.

I tried some of his other grips with more switches/buttons/functions but the wiring bundle was too large to fit down the front of the throttle shaft like I wanted. If you wanted to run the wiring bundle somewhere other than the throttle shaft slot in the quadrant then you could use a grip with lots of functions and the larger wire bundle size. I like the simple feel of the grip he made for me. It has a single button (latching or momentary) for PTT that could alternatively be set up for Go around, smoke system, etc.

Overall the grip is solid as I mounted it and feels great. The grip handle is just the right length & diameter and the PTT button falls perfectly just underneath the thumb for easy access. I covered the wide throttle shaft with large black heat shrink then covered the white wire bundle with small black heat shrink and ran it down the front of the throttle shaft. Once everything was secure I heated up the shrink and it tightly covers the shaft holding the wiring in place at the front of the vertical throttle shaft. I used the same heat shrink procedure years ago with a different style grip in my RV-4 and it held up well with no issues.

I think Paul has some good products, there have been a lot of different grips available but no one has come up with a good throttle grip solution that will be available long term. I have come across some before but the companies didn’t seem to stick around very long. Take a good look at his products, mine is staying in the airplane now.

The first 3 pics are my grip as installed in the -8 and the others that follow are some of his other designs.





Some of his other ideas: