Whiskers by .... comant or
lucky333 said:
I'm with George.
Am ordering my external COM and XPDR antennae now. What did you use for NAV, George?
Thanks,
John
Nothing on my -7, going GPS, potable & little antenna under glass (canopy). My RV-4's antenna, fiberglass whiskers, two hole mount. Forgot, but think it was a COMANT CI 159C. The white blended nicely with the white plane, but stainless steel works fine. The mount was just a black "hockey puck". It just went flat under the tail. Three holes, two mounting screws w/ nut plates and one in the middle for the coax connector. I could have made a little fiberglass canoe fairing but I just left it, less is more. Any brand will work, stainless or fiberglass. Some have 2 or 4 screw mounts. Two mount holes is easier than 4 and that was what I had. The fiberglass is suppose to perform better?
As I said when I raced so to speak, I took the VOR antenna off to "go fast" (wow a whole 1/2 mph). Two screws, 1 minutes; Pull the coax out - disconnect from antenna - attach a little safety wire to it, 1 minute; Stuff coax/connector back in - tape over the hole and exposed safety wire, 1 minute. To put it on was just reverse and required just screw driver.
I had it connected to a King KX-155 with VOR/LOC/GS and it worked. What can I say it was a VOR. Even the best VOR installation has limitations. I did fly IFR with it as my sole NAV source. It just worked as you expected. Enroute the performance seemed acceptable and gnd VOT/VOR test always where received. On tail draggers I don't like the VOR on top of the Vert Stab because of eye hazard. Model-A, the top of the Vert would work as well or even better? The disadvantage is more coax run and harder to remove.
A 1/2 mile per hour drag penalty is worth it for good VOR NAV performance, especially if IMC/IFR and it's your sole nav. IMC near the COP (change over point) an an airway w/ needles dancing, ambiguity pointer flopping, is not fun. I flew IFR in some rough freight planes before GPS or LORAN. Weak VOR receivers for what ever the reason "concerned" me. I didn't like the feeling or ever want to repeat it. Thanks to GPS its not such a pucker factor if the VOR needles flop around.
If I where to equip my RV IFR again, I'd go IFR-Lite and still rely (officially) on ground base Nav. IFR approved GPS's and their nav data base revisions are expensive. An "all-in-one" VOR/LOC/GPS receiver and a few paper enroute charts and approach plates, updated as needed, can get you into the system. Of course IFR GPS's are awesome, but for IFR Lite, IMC departures to VFR, enroute let downs through an undercast to VFR and high Min approaches, a VOR still is a handy and a cheap way to get some IFR capability. I flew a Piper IFR with a single VOR/LOC and MB. It worked for the places I needed to go. However if that one nav/com puked, it wouldn't have been pretty, so I picked my days to fly IMC. I suppose my hand held com/nav could have saved the day? Never had to try it but my test in the plane showed it was marginal. May be I could get a GCA or PAR approach using the portable handheld. The handhelds VOR radial read out was unusable with the rubber ducky antenna, drifting all over the place. The brand of radio, STS is defunct, but I still have it. The Com works fine, but if you plan to use any handheld radio for real backup COM, have a way to connect it to the external antenna and a headset.
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