Van's RV-7A HB-YMT » Avionics

Pitot/Static Calibration

Bernhard Daenzer — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:05:46 +0000

Also last week, Hanna helped to calibrate the pitot static system… First we had to chase a small leak which turned out to be the a NPT thread fitting that wasn’t exactly tight (not the first problem with thread fittings after all ;-) . After sealing this, everything was well within specs (less than 100ft/min altitude loss and less than 10kts/min speed loss). In the end, the speed drop was about 2 knots and the altitude loss 20ft per minute.

We used a calibration kit from the local maintenance provider to check accuracy. Amazingly, the cheap UMA backup instruments proved to be quite accurate.

Troubleshooting Avionics

Bernhard Daenzer — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:35:46 +0000

As was to be expected, there was some troubleshooting required to get all the avionics to play together nicely. I’m glad to report that practically all the snags could be worked out and we had only miswired two pins (serial TX/RX swapped). Out of a zillion pins, that’s a pretty good feat I would claim. Most of the issues were related to software configurations and sometimes bugs, that will have to be fixed with firmware upgrades. However, there are no showstoppers and nothing that would keep us grounded.

Support by Advanced Flight Systems and Vertical Power is excellent, with very short response times and positive replies.

Looking forward to fuel system stuff and first engine start coming soon!

Cold Temperatures, Slow Progress

Bernhard Daenzer — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:29:56 +0000

Beginning of March, winter really came back… So for the first two weeks, there hasn’t been much progress at all, safe for a few hours freezing in front or even inside the hangar. However, spent lots of time on paperwork.

Advanced Flight Systems EFIS Data

Bernhard Daenzer — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:52:43 +0000

Picture for use in the Advanced Flight Systems EFIS

We are currently configuring the complete avionics package besides the other finishing work.

Some stuff like a custom Mass&Balance pic or the % horsepower graphs are a tiny bit more work than just the setup menus.

So to share a bit, here’s our Mass & Balance “AIRCRAFT.AFB” file and a % Power chart courtesy of John Goldsmith for an IO-360-M1B and similar engine.

AIRCRAFT.ZIP (contains the .AFB file)
IO-360 M1B performance data.xls