Bug Plugs

[chrispratt]

I've just moved to my new hangar at 52F (home to Van's Air Force dot net) and it became immediately apparent that in addition to RVs, other flying things love the area.

To prevent my RV from becoming the victim of an infamous mud dauber kamikaze squadron, I devised a simple solution for covering the fuel vents while hopefully preventing me from inadvertently leaving the protectors in place during flight.

I already have inlet plugs from Bruce's Custom Covers to plug the major entry holes. So I ordered a couple of Van's pitot tube covers, drilled a hole in the closed end section of each cover and joined them with some nylon cord. I then connected that cord with another short piece of cord that joins to the existing plug covers. The idea being that when I pull the plugs on the inlet covers, I'll also be pulling the fuel vent covers off. So far it works.

The existing covers are shown at the bottom of the picture and the new fuel vent covers at the top. Click to enlarge the view.



Here's a view of the plugs in place on the fuel vent lines:



And here's the whole shooting match.




I hope this helps someone else out as well.

Chris

[Captain Avgas]

Originally Posted by chrispratt

To prevent my RV from becoming the victim of an infamous mud dauber kamikaze squadron, I devised a simple solution for covering the fuel vents while hopefully preventing me from inadvertently leaving the protectors in place during flight.

Chris

Chris, Vans drawings call for a mesh screen over the fuel vents. Do you believe that the "mud daubers" can get through your screen.

I'm also inclined to suspect that there would be fuel vapours coming from the fuel vents....and I'm imagining that no insect would like that environment.

Have you previously actually had a mud dauber problem in that location or do you know of some-one who has.

I'm not familiar with "mud daubers" so just asking the question.

[aparchment]

Yeah, we live in the same country, but occasionally we have no idea what our countrymen are speaking about.

I believe Chris is referring to wasps, or yellow jackets that build nests using something that looks like mud. Needless to say if they build nests in the wrong place it can be dangerous.

Hey Chris, you do you keep them from building nests in other parts of the plane. In my old Cessna I discovered while flying one day that they had built a nest under the instrument panel! That was entertaining. That same summer one of my partners left the pitot cover off and I lost airspeed shortly after takeoff.

They are annoying and dangerous little critters.

[DeltaRomeo]

Originally Posted by Captain Avgas

snip...
I'm not familiar with "mud daubers" so just asking the question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_daubers

b,
d

[aparchment]

I beg to differ with this statement from Wikipedia:

"Mud daubers are rarely aggressive."

Apparently the author has never run over one of their nests with a lawn mower, or encountered them in an enclosed cockpit at 3000 feet.

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by Captain Avgas

I'm not familiar with "mud daubers" so just asking the question.

Bob, I never knew what they were until I moved to Texas either - now I'm pretty familiar. They can build a mud dam in the time it takes to go get a sandwich! I caught one crawling out of the fuel vent on my Grumman years ago - made me a believer in the "Toro Lawn Sprinkler Filter fix". On the RV, I use vent covers made from a piece of fuel line and a drilled-head bolt with RBF flags on them.

Paul

[Webb]

Originally Posted by aparchment

Yeah, we live in the same country, but occasionally we have no idea what our countrymen are speaking about.

I believe Chris is referring to wasps, or yellow jackets that build nests using something that looks like mud. Needless to say if they build nests in the wrong place it can be dangerous.

Hey Chris, you do you keep them from building nests in other parts of the plane. In my old Cessna I discovered while flying one day that they had built a nest under the instrument panel! That was entertaining. That same summer one of my partners left the pitot cover off and I lost airspeed shortly after takeoff.

They are annoying and dangerous little critters.

The one you run over with a lawn mower are yellow jackets and often have a burrow in the ground. The ones that build little mud houses are mud daubers and they build them darn near anywhere they can on some type of structure above ground. Esp on the eves of your house.

Both are wasps and the yellow jackets have a mean streak. Esp if you run over them with a lawnmower.

For those that don't know what he is talking about, imagine grabbing a handful of soft clay and throwing it at anything it can stick to. Make sure it is well pushed on and polk a little hole in it. The vent line is a perfect starting point. They won't go up in the line, they'll just use it as a great starting point and fill the first inch up with mother earth that resembles a concrete plug.

I've had to clear mud nests out from under cowls because the mud can be around anything. One of the guys at the airport had to call an exterminator because he had a large lovely red wasp nest under his and got the pooh stung out of him when he went to check the oil.

This leads me to a good question. Is there anything we could put inside the cowl as a deterrent to wasp building nest inside the cowl?

[JDanno]

One of my friends is a dry wall hanger. His email address is: "muddauber@".....
He thought he was being clever!

I don't know about them not being aggressive. I was getting some tools out of the rear hatch of my Jeep when one came steaming out from under the vehicle and stung me twice on the arm. One happened to hit a surface vein and it stung like a rattlesnake bite. Swelled up quite a bit.

[chrispratt]

Originally Posted by Captain Avgas

...

Have you previously actually had a mud dauber problem in that location or do you know of some-one who has.

I'm not familiar with "mud daubers" so just asking the question.

Bob:

As you can read in some of the other replies, you are lucky if you don't have to deal with these little buggers. Around here they are mostly wasps and yellow jackets. They seem to love small spaces -- like vent lines and pitot tubes -- and can build in a hurry. Having heard a few horror stories about people seeing their fuel tanks (in our case the leading edge of the wing) suddenly collapse in on themselves due to clogged vent lines, I wanted to take action. Oddly, I never had the problem at Addison which is only 20 miles away.

I don't recall Van's "screen" direction but I suspect it wouldn't work as well as completely blocking the ports. Of course you must unblock them before flying. To make matters worse, I think the wasps love the color red. Just my opinion, but I stopped wearing red shirts while doing yard work after having been stung a couple of times years ago. Maybe the red made me look like a big, beautiful flower blossom

It's always something, right?

Chris

[chrispratt]

Originally Posted by aparchment

...

Hey Chris, you do you keep them from building nests in other parts of the plane. In my old Cessna I discovered while flying one day that they had built a nest under the instrument panel! That was entertaining. That same summer one of my partners left the pitot cover off and I lost airspeed shortly after takeoff.

They are annoying and dangerous little critters.

Antony:

Haven't figured out how to keep them out of everything. If you have any ideas please let me know. One flew into the cockpit the other day while I was taxiing out. I shooed him away, but the thought followed me the whole flight, "Did I really get that guy out of here?"

Chris