1 Aug 11
It's been a busy summer. Neighbor sold his Velocity and bought a Lancair IVP, so I went to OR to fly back with him. He didn't have high altitude or pressurized experience, so I went along to assist as needed. Turns out it was a good learning experience. We lost pressurization at FL 230 and had to rapidly descend to lower altitude.
8 Aug 11
The screen on my Advanced Flight Systems AF-3400EM failed after 187 hours. I contacted them and they were responsive to repairing it. I asked about upgrading it to full EFIS with mapping and they said it would cost more than a new one. But, since they had to repair the screen, they gave me a lower price for the upgrade. So, that is to be pulled and shipped. And the upgrade got me to thinking about upgrading the entire panel. The Blue Mountain equipment is not going to last long and there are no database updates available. Well, actually there is, but several iterations have been corrupted and the owner is virtually unreachable. He follows in the footsteps of BMA. So, the panel needs an upgrade. With the AFS upgraded to EFIS with mapping, I will have a great backup EFIS, so the BMA EFIS Lite (currently my backup EFIS) can be removed. I will operate the AFS display as an engine monitor except when needed as auxiliary mapping or the main EFIS fails. For the main EFIS, I will replace the BMA Gen 4 with the AFS 5600 with autopilot. Where the BMA Lite is currently mounted, I'm going to install a Garmin 430W to drive the EFIS. Somewhere on the panel, I'll need to add a comm/nav control since I'll retain the SL-30 as backup.
29 Aug 11
This month I've been working on the new Speedy Wingtips. According to Mike Thompson, organizer of the Sport Air Racing League, flat plate wingtips increase RV speed by 4 knots. Well, I'm gullible enough to believe anything, so I'm on a trek to make new flat plate Speedy Wingtips. They will fit just like the original tips, but have only 1.5 inches of width, thus reducing wingtip frontal area. I'm assuming that is where the speed gain is realized. With the shorter wings, the induced drag will increase slightly and the stall speed will increase. Once finished, I will tuft test and stall test to see what is happening.
 |
 |
 |
| First step for the wingtip change was to add DB9 connectors to each wingtip. When I built the airplane the suggestion from the internet electric expert was to leave out connectors. Bad idea. The connectors have to be installed sooner or later. So, I had to retrofit them. | I used blue from from the aviation department at Lowe's. It is high density stryofoam. | I decided to incorporate a fairing to streamline the outboard aileron hinges, if possible. Streamlining them will help only a tiny bit with speed, but I may as well attempt to improve them while I'm on the project. |
 |
 |
 |
| My initial attempt was okay and probably would have been usable, but I didn't want to have to tape over the hole I cut in it, so I made another one. | After shaping the foam and sanding to a relatively smooth finish, I added a matching piece at the inboard trailing edge for the hinge fairing. | This shows the fairing shape with the hinge to be covered below it. |
 |
 |
 |
| I used 12 inch wide, 72 inch long particle board and taped it so the resin wouldn't stick. I laid out 3 layers of 8 oz bid (should have used 4 layers) on the board and then put the foam in place and used 2 inch fiberglass tape around the edges. Topped it all with peel ply. | Added some weight to squeeze out the resin and force a flat outboard side. | After curing and before trimming. Left one shows the outboard side and right is inboard. |
 |
 |
 |
| After initial trimming and removal of some of the foam. Also, initial fitting to wing. | This shows the width of the tip. | After another round of trimming, I brought the edge overlap down to about 1/2 inch all around except for the top side from the spar rearward. The fence increases from 1/2 inch to 4 inches. This is similar to the wing fences I experimented with before that worked well. |
 |
The word from others who've tried this is
that the fence close to the aileron like this causes a heavy (stiff)
aileron. They didn't like the change in aileron pressure and took
the fence off. I'm going to try flying with it like this and if I
don't like it then I will cut it down smaller and try again.
To right, under the wing is a small lip to control airflow and keep the air from seeking the lower pressure outboard and causing a draggy vortex. I'll reduce the height of the lip to 1/4 inch. |
 |
 |
These photos show the aileron hinge from outboard (left) and inboard. |  |
 |
Here is the resulting fairing outboard and
inboard. There are several issues to be solved, but I think the idea
will fly.
To accommodate aileron movement, I had to trim surprisingly little from the inboard trailing edge of the fairing. |
 |
Next update 1 Sep 11