Plans: 1. Fabricate the Pitot & static tubes. Status: Complete. The Pitot/static tubes are used for the Altimeter, Vertical Speed Indicator and Airspeed Indicator. A commercially made unit similar to this one is available from Aircraft Spruce for a modest cost. Nevertheless I thought I would build my own since it appeared to be an easy project. It didn’t turn out that way. I spent more money on failed attempts then the commercial unit would have cost. Money was wasted on two different tubing benders and rigid copper tubing. It turns out that I could not bend the rigid copper tubing tightly without kinking it. A spring tubing bender worked eventually but in the end I crushed the thin walled tubing during the soldering step. So I fell back on using the same flexible tubing that was used for the wing scallops. It bent easily and seems rigid enough for the application. I had to drill eight 0.040 holes (No. 60 bit). These small holes are for the static ports. A little tricky as the bit is very thin and flexes easily. The holes are supposed to be 180 degrees opposed but are not in this case due to my clumsy setup. A plug for the end of the static port was fashioned from an AN3 bolt ground to fit the tube.
Note: Plans for this Pitot tube are available from the EAA website. The mounting block idea is from Sam Buchanan.
