Home Builders Log Photos Tips Experimental Air Links

Here are some different tips that I have either gotten from other builders or dreamed up as I've gone along.

Tips

ELT and Strobe Power Supply Location

Here is where I mounted my emergency locator transmitter. I have seen several guys mount their ELT antenna in this spot underneath the fiberglass tail fairing. I am putting such a big pig of an engine up front that I figure I better put an much weight in the tail as I can. You can also see the strobe power supply back there. With the giant moment arm to the tail this should help a little with the "feel" of flying the plane. I have heard more times than I can count that it is important to have an aft center of gravity in order to give the plane a good balanced feel when flying. The aft C.G. gives the tail control surfaces more authority, thus lighter inputs are required on the stick. If it turns out that I need more weight in the tail I have about 800 pounds of old Kitplanes magazines I will put to use.

I was initially worried about the strobe power supply interfering with the ELT transmission. I then realized that the only way they will be on at the same time is if I crash at night. I am not too worried about that scenario because at night, search and rescue can just look for the flames.

Arm Rest Stiffeners

Every side by side seating RV I have ever looked in has kinked arm rests from people putting weight on them to get in and out. It looks like hell and the only way to fix it would be to drill them out and replace them. They are riveted through the side skins so if the bird has paint, you are screwed. I used some 3/4" angle riveted behind the vertical lip in order to add some strengh. I am proud to say that I actually came up with this on my own, thought I'll bet I'm not the first.

Here I layed out a hole pattern on the angle and clecoed it to the outside of the armrest and backdrilled the holes.

And here she is clecoed in place.

Finished product. Yes they are pop rivets, I don't have a bucking bar that would reach in there and didn't want to screw with it. I'll fill them later if they bother me.

Shoulder Room Modifications

I decided to do everything that I can to make extra room in the cockpit. I pretty big and everyone in my family is also big (littlest brother is 6'3"). I'm not worried about the weight because I will just jack my gross up to 2500 lb.....just kidding guys, no emails please.

I first saw this John Hughes RV-6 at the Arlington Fly in. It is amazing what an extra inch and a half of shoulder room will do. For me it makes the difference between two big guys touching shoulders and not. Check it out.

I just cut the side off the canopy deck so that a shoulder can push in up agaist the rail. While at the fly in I asked Tom Green from Vans what he thought about the mod and he said that he did it to his years ago when the six was a new design. He told Van about the mod and Van told him that he fit just fine with the deck in place.

Leg Room Modifications

When I was laying out the hinges on the floor of the seating area used to attach the seat back, I moved the forward most hinge to the back. This gives me the three adjustments but mine are back about 1.5" behind what the plans specify. When I put in my seats I realized this gave me excellent leg room, but I was sitting up way too strait. After thinking it over carefully I decided to make a pretty major structural modification.

DO NOT MAKE THIS MODIFICATION WITHOUT CHECKING WITH VANS!!

You can see what I did below.

I cut into the back rest support in order to free up about 1-1/2". I then layed out a hole pattern and drilled holes for use in attaching a piece of 1"x1"x1/8" angle. I am not sure if I got back all of the strength I cut out, but it is close.

And her is the angle with holes drilled...

...and clecoed in place.

Here a couple shots of then end product.

Canopy Lock

This is nothing too special, but some of you guys may be wondering how this is done. I bought the ignition switch from Wicks that comes with two mountable locks that are all keyed the same. I only used one lock and I put it on the left side of the canopy. Here are a few photos of the whole affair.

I mounted it on the skirt in one of the lightening holes. I cut the oblong hole with a unibit and round file. I then cut a slot in the canopy rail by drilling two holes and cutting a slot between them with a Dremel.

Rocket Steering Link

Here are a few shots of the Rocket Steering Link that I bought from Terry Jantzy. It is one cool little mother. I really like the looks of it. I have heard that they are a little tighter than the screen door springs so I hope that isn't a problem. It is pretty tight and there is virtually no rudder deflection without the tailwheel. I don't know if this is good or bad but I have a feeling I will be on my toes. Here are some shots of the installation.

This pic shows the hole you have to drill in the rudder horn.

And then you mount this one eared link to the wheel in place of Van's two eared.

...and here she is installed.

It has one big piece of heat shink over the gas strut.

Rudder Cable Fairings

Here is a cool way to dress up the aft fuse of your tail dragger. The hole in the side of the fuse where the rudder cables come out is a little ugly but these little devils clean it right up. They may even reduce drag. I will try to find where I got the pattern for these and post it. They took about 15 minutes each to make.

Strap Duplicator

Here is something that I made in order to install my canopy skirts. I haven't needed one until now and probably won't need on again so I didn't want to buy one of them. It was very easy to make and worked pretty well.

I just took two strips of .032 aluminum about 6 inches long and riveted them together with three AN470 rivets at one end. I then drilled one hole in the other end. I dimpled the inside of one of the straps to accept an AN426 rivet. I ground off the protruding part of the dimple.

Initially I super glued in a rivet, but with the thin .032 metal and most of the dimple ground off, there really wasn't enough contact area for the the glue to work well. I ended up just setting the rivet in the hole and this worked fine.