Pink Smoke (or almost any color)
So how do you make pink smoke, you ask?
Well the smart guys at KC Flight have put a lot of effort into making this a reality. They sourced smoke canisters, then built brackets to fit their RVs. In the past 2 years of the NFL Breast Cancer Awareness Flyovers, they have fabricated at least 70 sets of smoke brackets. Mav (Richard White, RV Builder, A&P/IA) is the mastermind and lead on that effort. He welds them, paints them and fits them to each RV...custom fit! The entire KC Flight team works hard with Mav to make this happen.
The brackets are attached to the wingtip via the last 4 wingtip screws on the top and bottom of each tip. The measurements to those holes is the custom fit part. This picture shows Dula's tip in flight (same one Mike posted). There is a flat flange on the top and bottom of the wingtip, with a felt pad, through which the screws are placed. Then 2 small connecting pipes run aft and slightly outboard to the canister receptacles. All welded in place on a jig, then custom drilled, then painted. Tons of work for the KC Flight guys. There is also a small, adjustable flange that fits on the trailing edge of the wingtip for security and stability. You can see those in the 2nd and 3rd pictures.
The canisters slide in the receptacle (tight fit), and are cotter-keyed in the front loop of the receptacle
The wire to the firing squib comes out of the back of the canister, and most of us run that to a connection to the Nav lights. Some used small DB connectors, some used molex connectors, and some ran a pigtail from their outside mount Nav lights, and just twisted the wires. Everything gets taped down nice and tidy. This pic shows Stephen Cristopher's bracket ready to be wired (the wire to the squib is very long, its just stuffed in the tube till he cut it to length, wired it up and taped it down).
To activate the smoke canisters, the call from BeeGee was "Nav lights on...off". The draw is miliamps, but we don't want to run 12V continuous through the small squib wires and connectors...that's why the "off" part of the call is there. The canisters are a one-shot deal. Once on, they smoke for 2 minutes...no off switch available.
Its a really neat little set up, and KC Flight has done Pink, Red/White/Blue, and even Yellow/Black (for Sprint Cup). Hats off the KC boys for some real creativity with this!
They have manufacturing pics too...maybe Ripper will share some of those too...neat stuff!
Cheers,
Bob