Ah yes, but the education is priceless
It took all day, except for a trip to the dentist that didn't work out, but I got the SL-40 tray out at 8:30 pm last night. When I get the SL-30 tray in I should be on the home stretch - all of the actual wiring there is done. My plan is to fly to Mitchell, SD on Saturday for the AirVenture Cup race on Sunday so time is starting to get very tight. I have the Garmin 013-00112-00 splitter coming from Aerotronics (shipping today - next day air - per phone conversation) and coax cable and connectors coming from Aircraft Spruce (shipped yesterday - 2nd day air) for the splitter to Terra NAV diplexer link that I am dependent on.
I seem to be undergoing a test of some sort during this upgrade. Beside my faulty Garmin/Apollo mechanical design assumptions, I am coping with a Japanese beetle infestation of our rose garden, flat tire on wife's car, front tooth broken in half, grass growing extra fast requiring extra cutting and very high temperature. On a positive note, I have sweated off 5 pounds so far. I have fall-back plans that I can switch to to enable me to make it to Mitchell on Saturday unless the weather shuts me out. For example, after setting in the dentists chair for an hour and 15 minutes today I got up and told them I have to get my plane ready for a race this weekend and I have no more time - I don't smile all that much anyway so half of a missing upper front tooth shouldn't be noticed too much. As a last resort I will close the plane up and fly there with the SL-60 and the Terra NAV but I don't expect that to be necessary. Washing is optional (the plane) and waxing near impossible at this stage of getting ready to race - bugs from the West Texas 100 air race probably don't create that much drag.
My wife says I should have waited until after the AirVenture Cup race to upgrade the NAV system but I know I do my best work under pressure and if I didn't have this deadline it would be Christmas before I got it in.
Thanks for the suggestion Stein but this experience for this very old ex-USAF radio mechanic is priceless. If I were ever to build another airplane (it ain't happenin' folks) I would use fewer mounting screws in my radio racks.
Bob Axsom