Going with the flow

So there I was in June 1996. 35 years old, finally got my first professional pilot job and learning the meaning of the phrase "Drinking from a firehose." during ATR systems ground school at Flight Safety Hobby. I was having lunch with a group of classmates one day when someone asked how I was coming with my flows.

Uhhh...... What's a flow?


Commercial aircraft use two different philosophies when it comes to getting an airplane ready to fly. One is to use a checklist as a "Do list", where each item is read and done. Others use it as a true checklist, where each segment of flight (Preflight, Before Engine Start, After Engine Start, etc) has a "flow" accomplished where systems are turned on or off, then the checklist verifies the correct setting.

While you'd think that aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing, Embraer, etc would have their flows and checklists wrtten in stone, this is not true, as each airline has their own operational preference depending on their past history. It's pretty interesting to jumpseat on Alaska, Southwest, and my own airline and see radically different ways of getting the same type of airplane ready to fly. In fact, one of the biggest operational challenges at my airline during our merger has been the melding of the different styles, and our checklists/flows have gone through a couple iterations, with each airline believing their way is best.

Over the last couple years I've visited the factory a few times, and attended a couple Garner's Landing fly-ins. In each visit I took photos of other SeaRey instrument panels, and I've also availed myself of threads on the private SeaRey Tech site. I've seen good and bad things, debated and sketched ideas, and my panel is a distillation of what I've learned from everyone else, filtered through my own experiences. Oddly, I also reached way, way back into another part of my life when I was in retail sales. Building displays I learned that our eyes scan horizontally, so we were taught to build our displays with like items in vertical rows to interrupt this scan and get peoples attention. (Check it out next time you're at the mall.) If I have a horizontal flow it moves better, but it also encourages scanning and skipping, especially when fatigued or complacent. A vertical flow is less natural, but by interrupting the natural flow it forces you to pay attention.


So there I was last week, sitting in a cold hangar making zoom-zoom airplane noises and pretending to go through my checklists. I'm using XPanel 5000 to help design my panel, it lets me mess around while I'm on the road and play with different setups.

In this picture I'm concentrating on the left wing panel, and the location of the battery switch, primary fuel pump switch, and the ignition switch.

Should I have the battery power on the bottom right, and my power-up flow is upward, turning the battery switch on, then the primary fuel pump? That way when powering down the flow reverses, and I turn the fuel pump switch off/down, followed naturally downward by the battery switch.

Or should I place the battery switch in the upper left and the fuel pump in the upper right, so my flow goes left-right/right-left?

Each version has pros and cons. I'll have to think about it, hopefully without overthinking it.


Moving on, across the top are the caution/alert lights for various systems. An analog airspeed indicator is prominently located in the center for easy reference by either pilot. Digital instruments and readouts have their uses, but they require the numbers to be read, interpreted, analyzed, and acted on. In the low altitude seaplanes operate in, this can result in too much time taken away from flying the airplane with fatal results, and a few years ago when digital panels started coming into vogue some SeaRey pilots reintroduced this low tech instrument to their panels. It's a great idea, when doing a glassy water landing you don't need to know that you're at 71, 72, or 73 knots, you just need to know that your speed in "this far" in the green and stable. Or that it's "about there" approaching the bottom of the arc, and you better get some smash back into the plane.

There's a bit of concern about where I have the vertical card compass, it should be 4" away from any other electrical component (such as a radio), and that might change, I might relocated the compass and put an analog altimeter in there. Both will feed off the Skyview.

The PAR100EX has a built-in intercom, one less box on the panel but another one inside.

The backup fuel pump for the Rotax 914 is next to the Dynon. I want it located where I'll remember to turn it on/off for landing, not buried in the switches on the far right (more on those later), but I also don't want it in the way where it will easily get turned off by accident.Sitting in the airplane it seems to be ok.....

The red CHECK GEAR sign is over an ACI Gear Alert System. This "Bitching Betty" verbally prompts you to select either a water or ground landing, and checks if the position of the gear is correct. If the gear is in the incorrect position, in a voice like a high speed blender grinding a hunk of copper wire she seductively whispers for you to fix it. Now.

I wasn't going to install a Gear Alert System. After all, I'm a professional pilot and wannabe junior SkyGod. But after listening to some real SkyGods I changed my mind and will be putting one in. Gear switches and lights, and a simple mnemonic that will hopefully keep me out of trouble are next.


The green squares are another ACI product, with pushbutton selection of 4 flap positions (up, 10, 22 or 30 degrees). No holding down a momentary ON switch to retract or extend flaps, just PTFB and get them up or down.


Note the switches. The row on top is systems, the bottom row is lighting. Remember what I was saying about flows? The lights also serve as confirmation of each checklist step, since the last item in each checklist is a light of some kind. Power up? Nav lights. Before start? Beacon. After start? Landing/taxi lights. Cleared for takeoff? Strobes. So by the time you're ready to go flying the entire bottom row should be up, shutting down they should all be down. That's the theory, at least.

The far right wing panel gets the ELT controls, there will be a clip for a iPod, and a 12v aux power output that will also serve as an input for trickle battery charger or GPU for starting.


Like they say, no plan survives the first shot, so this is all subject to change. But for now, it looks good.

Yes, Virginia...

There is a North Pole. Coming home from Delhi Christmas Eve we skirted the Claus Prohibited Area around his workshop.

Merry Christmas

Oh nose!!!!

I'm an idiot when it comes to electrical systems, so my electrical system and panel are going to be built by Jim Ratte. He's asked that I ship everything down to him, which means building a big crate.

Call me cheap, call me sentimental, but these are the screws from the original shipping crate. Some of the wood is being used for the dolly, and the rest was used by another person to crate T-6 parts.

Before I ship everything off Jim asked that I mate the nosedeck to the hull, and trim the panel to fit when the veneer is done. Apparently each nosedeck and hull have some minor variations, so it makes sense.

First, cleanup the flashing on the edge.

Measure 1" in. I added 0.25 for a little safety margin.

And carefully cut. 

The panel will be attached to this lip.  

For the umpteenth time, a fit check. 

 .

Then use a rivet spacer to set the 3" spacing. Note the stereo heaters.

Deep breaths, start drilling and clecoing from the front. 

She's got a little bit of an overbite. 

Some corrective surgery on her lower lip fixes it.

Much better. Still got a little hook, but a SeaHawk's beak is supposed to.

Almost looks like she's smiling. 

I was going to use ratchet straps to pull the deck and hull together, but they kept slipping on the curve of the bow. I finally just forced them together and it worked fine.

But the ends just did not sit flush. I'm told that's normal and it will be covered with the edge strip. After these were taken I added a few more clecoes.

OspRey doing her catfish impersonation. Note that to make it fit I had to add more clecoes every so often off the spacing I had set earlier.  

Kinda weird to see open space there. 

That's better. 

And it's time to make the final decisions about switch layout, radio, etc. 

Here's the current almost-final design. After decades of flying rental aircraft with crappy radios I swore that when I owned an airplane I'd have excellent radios, so (this week) I've decided to go with a PAR100EX radio/intercom system.

Merry Christmas, Happy Solstice, and Go SeaHawks!!!!!!

Road trip

"Hi Steve, I'm covering wings this week. Interested in coming down and learning?"

Silly question. What was fun was how similar it was to using monokote on the models I've been building since I was 17.

If it looks easy...

The thing about building your own airplane is the little touches. Putting the throttle exactly where your hand rests comfortably, obsessing about making a hickory veneered instrument panel...

Several weeks ago Gordon laid the veneer on the instrument panel, and it looked great. I trimmed the excess off and laid it in place while I went on a few trips, but when I got back  found the contact cement had not held. Even though it had been sealed with varnish it had absorbed some moisture, flexed and delaminated from the fiberglass. Damn.

We got some good advice, which was not to use regular veneer but instead use paperbacked veneer, and to use West Systems 207, a clear epoxy hardener. I decided to try the 207 with some scrap, and since it was so cold

in the hangar I moved everything to my home workshop. Making the panel I had been told to lay a slurry of resin and microballoons between the foam and the glass, but it often left some voids on the front of the panel. Since the last panel I made was Ok but less than perfect, I decided to try one without any microballoons. My thought was the manual I had been using was for some foam with a more open structure, whereas the foam I am using is very tight with very little open cell structure.

My theory was right. Perfect pull. 

In the meantime, the scrap was laid up with various amounts of epoxy under it to see how much/little would soak through. A simple vacuum bag this time, I was surprised to find I didn't have to leave it on the mold, the panel held its shape perfectly.

The blue marks are from a Sharpie. Note to self: make sure they're removed before the next time.

Before the next trip I varnished some of it and left other parts raw, after a month there was no difference, it all held perfectly. 

Next will be to make a practice pull with the paperbacked veneer, then the real thing.

Still going...

We're setting records for rain up here, but the good news is the temperatures have mellowed out and I've been able to keep working after all.Trying to take advantage of the warmth, I got the turtledeck carpeted, but it turned into a lesson about how quickly efforts to save weight can be undone.

Tape up all the openings so the glue doesn't seep through

The turtledeck/engine pylon is a high vibration area, and I didn't want to have the carpet to debond from the turtledeck because of it. Laying the carpet glue down I developed a heavy hand, and indoor/outdoor glue is surprisingly heavy. Bad hand. Bad hand.

The carpet is a felt-like material I bought from PA, and with patience it's easy to mold around the compound curves.

I paid for the heavy hand in other ways. If you use too much glue it seeps through the carpet, but if you're careful you can dab it out with some lacquer thinner. If you really use too much glue and aren't careful you end up making it worse. It was far enough back inside the baggage area, instead of leaving well enough alone I decided to try to patch the carpet.

Oh well.....

After the glue dries pull the tape, and hot knife the openings for the pylon structure, fuel/electrical lines and the flap pushrod.

Extra Innings

Ok, even though I was raised in a baseball family, I'm a football guy. It's just wrong that the World Series now extends into November when football is going on. This time of year is for things like "Montana drops back to pass... Young is looking for Rice..."


But even though it was raining it didn't get as cold as fast as I thought... and I had some time... so......

 

The latest change to the aft cockpit manual shows the pitch trim changing, with the actuator now having a double bracket. I took mine apart, made a second bracket and installed it. But they must have changed something in the design because it changed the geometry, and it ended up rubbing against the elevator pushrod tube, so after spending a couple days installing it I remembered the old NASA saying: "Better is the enemy of best.", which also means "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.", and I undid the double mod.

Next was to make the hull doubler from some 6061, and drop it off at APC.

It was suggested I change the AN3 bolt for the tailwheel retract cable to an AN4, and add a bushing. Done.

Some concern also came up that the tailwheel bumper might actually cause a problem, since it makes the tailwheel hang lower, and it might catch a wave, snapping the extension cable. Good point, and I removed the bumper, and filled the holes with 6-8 rivets. 

Remember the hunk of foam I added way back when to keep drafts out? Problem is when the tail comes up out of the water a little flows back up the tube, and could be caught by the foam, leading to corrosion. A big stick helped shove the foam out of a small hole.

Here we go again. A to-do list for the turtledeck mate.

Since it's cold let's get the heater going. The standard PA heater is in the front cockpit ahead of the rudder pedals, but it requires tubing to be run from near the cluster bracket all the way up to the front, through the cockpit. It adds weight, and there's just something about having hot coolant underfoot in the cockpit that made me nervous.

Another alternative is to mount the heater from Recreational Mobility on the boom tube in the baggage compartment. I'm told most of the drafts come from up the boom tube and thru the aileron torque tube fairing overhead, so it makes sense to have the heater back there. Yes, it will eat into the available space in the baggage compartment a bit, but I'm learning kitbuilding is a series of compromises.

More hacking, making room for the fuel and electrical runs in the front of the pylon, and the heater hose in the back.

Since I've got the turtledeck out, let's pretend to make some windows. They'll get cut last during final assembly. 

Trace the outline of the windows, then draw another line 1" inside.  Trim, align 3" back and 4" up from the front of the TD.

Spend some time checking and double checking the alignment, and redraw the lines a few times. Or more.

"Back when" I ran the wing nav light wiring inside some silicone tubing, and it was a royal pain. While it worked, in the back of my mind I've been worried what might happen if I had to replace the wiring for some reason. I decided to use a larger diameter for the tail light, but that was a pain since the tubing was heavy, smashed flat, and curled up. I started to heat the tubing and it straightened out fine, but after spending an hour and only getting a foot done I was rapidly getting frustrated.

Then I remembered this stuff called "Bilge tubing". Lightweight, easy to straighten out, it slipped into  the boom tube in seconds, and getting the wiring thru didn't take much longer. Next year I'll replace the tubing in the wing with it.

I've been putting off the fuel system. I wanted to have a fuel shutoff at the tank outlet before the fuel pumps, and there needs to be a gascolator or filter before them. When I picked up the aluminum tank a couple years ago Paige was kind enough to give me a handmade fuel strainer tapped into a brass barbed fitting, but all I could find was a fuel shutoff tapped for threaded fittings. Which meant I'd have to go from tank-hose-shutoff-hose-filter/gascolator-hose-pumps. Lots of fittings, lots of hoses, lots of stuff that needed to be secured against vibration. I didn't like that. I wanted to go directly tank-shutoff-hose-filter/gascolator.

I couldn't pull the strainer out of the fitting, and frustrated I put it in a vise and wiggled. Eventually it popped right out. 

It was 0.02" too big for the fitting, so I borrowed JR's lathe and carefully turned it down. 

It wasn't a perfect fit, but I into a corner where it wasn't quite tight enough for me to be happy, but too tight to remove, and I didn't want to hammer it too hard and risk breaking it.

Stopping by Scott's shop, he judged that it was comfortably tight and secure, but also pulled out some Pro-Seal. I left it to set-up while I was gone on this trip.

 

Guess what Gordon finished?

I miss being warm.