I haven't worked on the airplane much these last few months--been working a lot and when I had time to make progress on the plane I just didn't have the energy. Things change--thankfully. Work is getting more reasonable again and my interest level in making progress is renewed.
I spent 8 hours yesterday just going over the blueprints and the airplane. I really just needed to 'reconnect' with the project. I felt as though I had lost touch with it. By going over each drawing and comparing them to the airplane I got a much more attuned sense of where I was overall and what remains to be done. Lots of notes taken and a clear course of action emerged.
Ok, so today I started the electric aileron trim assembly. It's an option kit that mounts under the floor pan between the seats. I took a picture of what it looked like there before I started just for comparison. The photo shows the gray elevator push/pull tube and the black wiring conduits.
The mount just entailed a little trimming of the width and locating and drilling the various bolt, screw, and rivet holes. I also drilled the UHMW plastic block that acts as the mount/bearing for the actuator arm and then put everything together. There is a pic below.
The mechanism mounts between the two center seat ribs and there is a servo which mounts down and aft from the actuator assembly. I thought that getting the location right for the servo was going to be a real bugger, but it wasn't. I took the servo and determined the extent of travel. Then I put it into the neutral position and connected it to the actuator arm. It basicall hung there pretty much where it needs to be mounted to the rib--pretty cool. I'll tweak it and make sure that it doesn't bind before I drill it and mount it. That is for tomorrow, though. The last pic is tough to see, but the servo is left and below the actuator assembly. The light gray tube in the right of the photo is the same tube in the first photo.
