August 2000

Saturday 5

I had to go away for business again, but I was determined to do something on my project.  I had finally got the rudder pedals to rotate properly and it was time to bond the floor in permanently. I managed to persuade my wife to come and help and after a few hours in the workshop, I had a nice looking lay up on both rudder pedal floors.

Sunday 6  ~ Friday 11

Departed for China on business.

Saturday 12

I had  another one of those "half asleep" kind of days after my return from China.  I did swing by the workshop for a few hours and decided to work on something different.  I cut the aluminum inserts out for the instrument panel and punched out the six holes for the basic instruments.  My local EAA chapter has an instrument hole punch and that does a real nice job of it.

Sunday 13

I did a bit more on the instrument panel today.  I did the cut outs around the adjusting knob on the altimeter and VSI an fitted up the six instruments.  The next job was to cut the Europa instrument panel to take the instruments.  This took a couple of cycles but the finished result look pretty good

I used .80" aluminum plate and I would not recommend using anything thinner than that.  To get the instruments in a rectangular pattern I put them 6mm from the edges and used an 87 mm spacing.  As you can see from the cutouts this is a pretty tight fit.  The spot next to the altimeter is for my Narco 122.  This is a combined Glideslop/VOR/Marker beacon in a standard 3.25 hole.  The thing is 11" deep so I had to build the panel out to get the clearance at the rear.

I have an Apollo GX60 IFR GPS/Nav and for engine monitoring I intend to use an EIS. monitor   This should make for a fairly compact panel

Friday 18

I snuck off work a little early and did a few practice instrument approaches.

Saturday 19

I wasn't happy with my efforts last night so I did some extra instrument approach training in the morning in preparation for my trip.

Sunday 20 ~ Tuesday 29

I took a long overdue holiday.  Jenny, Kristy (my daughter) and I departed on a flying vacation in our Comanche 180.  We headed out west with our ultimate destination being Yellowstone National Park  We stopped halfway at Rapid City to visit Mt. Rushmore and then onto Billings.  We covered nearly 2000 nm in 9 days and had a great scenic tour.

Thursday 31

I did a little work on the Europa panel.  I have an Apollo GX60 which needs a device which indicate when it is in approach or navigate mode.  This is an odd shape thing and it took quite some time to mark out