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HOT Throttle Quadrant Lever

I do not have any experience with them but the guy who makes them is a personal friend. He is putting one in the Radial Rocket he is building. They are high quality and well built. I will be buying one and putting it in my plane.
 
Doug mentioned this on the front page today.

I have one of his throttle handles on order to retrofit into our DJM quadrant on the -3. I saw the product highlighted on the Kitplanes web site last week, liked the look, and had one on order in a couple of days. Andy was easy to work with, and I am looking forward to seeing how well it fits!

Paul
 
Looks nice... but if you end up flying from the other seat, you might appreciate something a bit more symmetric.
 
I have a set of retrofit levers from Andy, for my DJM, and I can tell you that his response is wonderful. My experience is that most of the aviation vendors we use have good service, but Andy's service shines above the others, in my opinion. He was quick to provide the switches I wanted in the throttle grip, since I already had trim and other switches on my Infinity stick, I only needed a couple of momentary switches in the throttle.
I'm almost to the point of installing my quadrant with the new levers and am looking forward to seeing it installed. Once I do, I'll post a few pictures. (Maybe someone else will post some sooner.)
I think his quadrants will look exceptionally good in the RV8's and I think he may be working on a center quadrant for the side by sides, but that is for Andy to say.
 
That throttle looks pretty cool. I have more buttons and controls on mine than I could possibly use, but I my only regret is that I only hooked up my flaps on the throttle. If I had it to do over (or wanted to tear it all apart and use another button), I'd have wired my electric fuel pump to one of the switches. It's a pain to have to reach over to the right switch panel to activate the pump ...

throttle-1.jpg
 
Good eye! And first one to catch it. I literally tried everything from drill guns, to hammers, various tools, pistol grips, automobile shifter grips, motorcycles, bicycles, tennis racquets, everything, even went into the kitchen and cut into one of my wife's favorite cooking ware items (still in the dog house). Finally came back to rifle grips, and voila! Just enough room for electronics up top and you don't get a better tactile/comfort feel than that grip. Super heavy duty -- I've bashed the **** out of it, drilled through it, heated it up, and it holds beyond description (well, guess it should considering it's original design purpose.) The pistol grips were close, but not enough up top for the entire hand. Working with Hogue now in making some slight modifications, and adding "FATBOY" up the backstrap. Also working on a stubbier version for prop lever. The RV8s are tight laterally, so this might not work having 2 FatBoys side by side, so with a stubbier version tucked under the throttle grip? I have a guy in FL that I sold 2 FatBoy grips/levers that will be doing both prop and throttle in a Pitts Model 12.

On the center mount front, I just built a Thorpe T18 quadrant (pics are on the site for center mount 3 levers). We are mounting along the bottom panel flange with 3 AN3 bolts. This is rock solid and for the Thorpe (fairly tight laterally between pilot/co-pilot) everything clears fine. We built in extended side walls moving forward to help with cable sleeve end mounting. I know that with the center mount RV's, when moving to an "off the panel" quadrant, I have seen 2 for/aft brackets behind the panel as well, so I am open to working with these folks in adapting our sidewalls to move up as well, once behind the panel which would give additional support (maybe overkill). Another option with existing quadrants is to just swap out for the lever/grip. This is turning into an ad, sorry.

That F16 grip is amazing. So what does the afterburner feel like in an RV-8?

Thanks for the positive feedback, fellas. Getting a quadrant right is a moving target -- different airframes, "pilot" frames, panel positions, cable positions, grips, knobs, travel restrictions, vertical/horizontal restrictions, knob/grip clearance, it all adds up, so I'm always looking for feedback and suggestions.

Happy Holidays,

Andy
 
fatboy said:
...That F16 grip is amazing. So what does the afterburner feel like in an RV-8?...
Click to expand...

Andy, because I'm too cheap to pay to push it into burner very often or for very long, it pretty much feels like an IO-360 most of the time. :D
 
I'd like to see the guts to that throttle grip. Are you using most/some of the switches? The closest thing I have to an F16 TQ is a Thrustmaster (remember them back in your PC flight sim days)?
 
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