Monday, February 10, 2014

40-05, 40-06 Landing Light

The only step that needed to be done for page 40-05 was riveting in the landing light itself, and that was one that I didn’t want to do do until the very end.    I received a new Lexan piece and was planning on fabricating a new lens with some heat forming (as needed) to get a better fit to the inside curvature of the leading edge.   When I placed the new Lexan for a test fit, I realized that the alignment depended on holes that were initially spec’ed out as #40 but later drilled out to #27 and then dimpled.  I didn’t think I’d be able to get it well aligned, so I thought I’d give the original lens one more try.  

I took the original lens and put it in boiling water for a few minutes, then gently applied some pressure to the lateral edge to decrease the radius of curvature.  While it’s not snug against the inside edge of the outside part of the whole, it’s about half as bad as it used to be.  I decided that “Perfection is the enemy of Progress” and riveted everything in place.  Voila!  The landing light is finished!

 

IMG 2910

First Light 

 I forgot to mention;  I had previously purchased the floating connectors used at the wing roots.  Before I buttoned up the light, I rigged the appropriate power & ground leads to the mating connector and hooked it up to a 12 v battery charger and did a ‘smoke test’.  I can’t post the video, but I also connected the Pulse Power lead and verified that that mode worked too.  I’ll complete the rest of the wiring for the connectors to have power for the nav and strobe lights, and a buzzer for the stall warning switch.

IMG 2911

 Landing Light

As long as we’re on the topic of lights, etc. I won’t be doing the Nav/Strobe assemblies on the wing tips until later in the summer due to the (very!) cold temps in the garage.  From what I have read, I need temps in the 70-80 °F range to work with the fiberglass flox, so that’s going to wait until later. 

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