| day |
notes |
hours |
| 2 |
Send e-mail to Roger & John at Europa asking for some details of the firewall-forward kit, and engine prices and lead times. |
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| 4 |
Roger replies to my e-mail, saying they can deliver the FWF kit less cowlings for probably less than it would cost me to drive up and collect them, and that Skydrive should have engines in stock. |
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| 5 |
Phone Roger at the factory and order the FWF kit for a 912S, less the cowl parts and anything else that might need to be changed for the new cowl. Get box 12 (with RS fuel level sensor etc) and instrument module F14 out of trailer. Notice that I haven't left room for the side mounting rails in my CAD mockups of the panel including the AirGizmo mount for the Garmin 296. There is just about room for 9.5mm angle without re-arranging things drastically. Using the TruTrak wing leveller control box, check space available for 2.25" instruments in the "switch" panel area. Appears to be plenty of room for up to 5 such instruments, although they will need to be positioned with care to clear the underside of the module. Phone Parts For Aircraft, discuss MGL Stratomaster Infinity series instrument capabilities and order RTC-2, E-3, BAT-1 & FF-1 with Floscan transducer. Looking at Garmin yoke mount, realise it may be possible to unscrew the docking bracket and use it as a panel mount instead of the AirGizmo. That would leave the unit outside the panel in its entirety and not look so neat, but would consume less panel space, which might be useful. Note that the just-announced Garmin aera 500 touchscreen GPS appears to offer more screen area in a smaller box than the 296, and to have superseded it (the 296 has disappeared from the Garmin website), and Transair already have it listed at a lower price than the 296 - ho hum. |
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| 6 |
Remove the docking bracket from the Garmin yoke mount. It uses 6-32 countersunk screws. The 0.5" ones fitted only protrude 4mm behind the bracket so longer ones will be needed to catch anchor nuts behind the 2mm aluminium panel. Offer up the 296 in the bracket and it uses so much less space than the AirGizmo that I'm happy to have it protruding. While thinking about getting the cables through the panel (will need keyhole slots and grommets) remove the Garmin external aerial from its windscreen sucker mount and see what it looks like on top of the instrument module F14, well forward near the screen. Seems fine, but slightly longer M3 screws than the ones on the sucker mount will be needed to get through the layup. Or maybe some arrangement with an intermediate piece of aluminium might be better - could also provide easier access to the screws - if the windscreen wasn't in the way! Draw up in CADintosh the Garmin GPSmap 296 with the mounting holes for the bracket. Position it on the radio panel drawing and move other things around in the space thus freed up. Check radio position as the right-hand end is constrained by the panel wall between the radio area and the shelf. It would have been fouling in the higher position previously drawn to make room for 3-off 2.25" instruments below it, so bring it down a bit, which leaves plenty of room for both intercom and transponder head above it. Slide wing leveller controller down a bit - with the GPS now protruding so far out of the panel, anything butting up against the bottom of it will be partially masked by it, as the eye line is somewhat above the GPS. Now room for both Smart Avionics CS prop controller and Woodcomp manual control under the radio, leaving quite a lot of space so far unused. Try out the anti-vibration mounts on the gyro panel. Generally looks OK although maybe more than 6 might be desirable. Notice that the female ends only admit a M4 screw about 2 turns, so the 10mm stainless button-head screws I have in stock are a bit too long. |
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| 7 |
MGL instruments ordered from Parts For Aircraft arrive. Hook each one up in turn to a 12V battery and they all seem to perform as advertised (as far as I can tell without sensors connected). Later, perusing the manuals more deeply, realise that the E-3 can't do oil temp and pressure as well as CHT because the Rotax CHT senders are NTC resistive types, not thermocouples. Looks like I'll need another instrument. |
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| 9 |
 Firewall-forward kit arrives from Europa. Can find no inventory sheet with it, and the black-painted radiator appears to have suffered transit damage - it has a dent in one face and one of the mounting lugs is bent. Phone Roger at the factory and discuss. He agrees I should send back the radiator and he'll send the inventory document with the replacement one. Notice that although as expected there are no other instruments in the kit, there is a UMA tachometer. |
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| 10 |
Phone Wilksch to discuss engine delivery. Order from Axminster Power Tool Centre a digital angle gauge and some black polyester cylindrical turning blanks which look promising as handles for the retract and throttle levers. Now convinced that I don't need the AirGizmo dock for the GPSmap 296, sell it at Gloster Strut meeting for half what I paid. |
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| 11 |
Axminster Power Tool Centre order arrives. Get the trim servo box out of box 9 in the trailer. Measure up the switch and indicator and draw them in CADintosh. Put them side-by-side on the latest iteration of the radio panel, with the MGL fuel flow and clock instruments plus the VDO fuel gauge. Add anchor nuts at the corners and one in the middle of the upper right-hand curve. The panel is now comfortably full, with spaces here and there for switches and lamps etc. The functional grouping seems reasonable, with com radio, intercom and transponder in one area, GPS and wing-leveller in another, fuel indicators in another, and manual & CS prop controls in another. The GPS is right at the top close to the sight line. Adjust the positions of the items in the side view to match the latest front-view locations, and add an upper triangulation member for the radio tray. Send an e-mail to Woodcomp asking for current price of SR3000 propeller with the high-twist blades as recommended by David Joyce. |
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| 12 |
Reply received from Jiri at Woodcomp giving SR 3000/3 W propeller cost. |
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| 14 |
Submit enquiry on LTS website about laser cutting and engraving of panels. Send e-mail to Europa asking if new cowl shape will use the present XS spinner. |
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| 16 |
Order 52mm holesaw from Amazon for the analogue fuel gauge (of course may not need it if I go ahead with a laser-cut panel). After some preliminary e-mail exchanges including a sample DXF file, Jerry Davis of LTS phones to say the Europa radio panel could be cut for about £40. He can also get it (and the gyro panel) anodised black and will check the cost of that. |
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| 17 |
Trim servo governor arrives from Matronics. Looks like there would be room for it to fit behind the radio panel, adjacent to the current trim switch location. That would allow adjustment of the trimpot from the front of the panel through a suitably-aligned small access hole. Need to think about how to clamp it securely to the back of the panel so it can't move and disturb the alignment. |
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| 18 |
52mm holesaw arrives from Amazon. Mike McClean e-mails to confirm spinner size will stay the same with the new cowl design. Phone Roger at Europa and order Rotax 912S engine. Jiri at Woodcomp e-mails a pro-forma invoice for the SR3000/3 W propeller and instructions for payment. Initiate a Swift transfer for the propeller online. |
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| 19 |
Roger at Europa phones to say I can have a stock engine from Skydrive (which is cheaper than one specially ordered) but they will need full payment rather than a credit-card deposit. Remind Roger I'm still waiting for the oil cooler and the FWF inventory. Make an online transfer to the Europa factory account for the engine. |
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| 20 |
Replacement oil cooler and FWF parts list arrive from Europa. Scan the list, OCR it and import to FileMaker Pro parts database. Print checklist with column for box number. |
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| 21 |
Order TP-1 instrument for oil pressure and temperature from Parts For Aircraft, plus screened cable & switches. |
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| 23 |
Start to number the boxes in the FWF kit delivery and find that there is a bill of materials attached to the outside of one box. I was convinced I had checked all the labels on all the boxes, but obviously not. I note it is slightly different from the one Roger sent later, with the CDxx plate parts (and of course the cowl pieces) not included. Check the box contents against the list. Most things are OK; there are a few surpluses (including a duplicate radiator hose) and one Tinnerman washer short. After discussions with David Joyce about need for precision in the prop flange dimension, e-mail Jiri at Woodcomp to ask for delay on propeller delivery until I can get a chance to measure my own installation. Send e-mail to MGL to check about recommended fusing arrangements. |
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| 24 |
Reply received from MGL saying it's OK to use either one fuse per instrument or all on a single (suitably-sized) fuse. TP-1, wire, switches arrive from Parts For Aircraft. |
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| 25 |
Send e-mail to Roger at Europa asking if he wants the surplus radiator hose back. |
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| 26 |
Roger replies saying they'd like the radiator hose back but the few other surplus small parts are OK to keep. |
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| 27 |
Post surplus radiator hose back to Europa. In the Expo catalogue recently delivered with Model Engineers Workshop magazine, come across 12V LEDs with panel-mounting holders which look quite promising as remote warning lights for the MGL instruments. Consider going to local stockists Antics in Gloucester or Stroud, but decide instead to order some from the Antics website. |
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| 28 |
At The Flying Show, buy transponder aerial from Airworld and logbooks for airframe, engine and propeller, with binder, from LAA. |
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| 30 |
Finish listing items with flying leads that will need barrier strips for connection. Order some of each size required, including a few spares, from Farnell. Order a 57mm grit-edged holesaw and short M4 screws & stiffnuts for gyro panel fixings from Buck & Hickman. |
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