Afraid to maintain an old plane

donjohnston said:
Really? I don't know the G1000, but I would think the weight savings from eliminating the conventional instruments, engine gauges, vacuum system, panel mount avionics would have saved a bunch of weight.

I know the Grand Rapids system I installed was about half the weight of a traditional instrument panel. But I guess it wouldn't surprised me if the G1000 instrument panel ended up weighing twice what mine does.
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The G1000 is heavy. People think it must be lighter because "it's modern electronics, after all," but it's not. I've had the stuff out numerous times. The panel displays alone weigh as much or more than all the steam gauges. They're a couple of inches think and have cast aluminum heat sinks on the back; they're not just thin little screens. The radios, AHRS and engine monitoring systems boxes are hidden under the baggage shelf in the tail cone, and there's a whole row of them. There's a pitot-static air data computer ahead of the intrument panel. There's the backup battery ahead of the pilot's display, a sealed lead-acid battery that weighs maybe eight pounds all by itself. There are two cooling fans for the panel displays and another for the stuff in the back. It all adds up mightily and it takes up all the room behind the panel and under that baggage shelf.

There's also a thick cable that runs from the panel down under the floor and aft to the avionics bay. It's not particularly light either.
 
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MacFly said:
I do admire those who have the patience and the ability to spend 4 years or more building an airplane, and more power to them. But I'm not that guy. The more time I spend on the VAF forums the more convinced I am that Experimental aviation suits my “mission” perfectly, but actually building an airplane does not.
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To be honest I had bought another Sonex and finished it up before the one I have now. But there wasn't a lot to do with that one. This one was quite a bit of work and took just over 2-1/2 years from beginning to first flight. Then there was more to do with the flight testing, tweaking, painting, etc.

I wasn't sure I wanted to build but I had a mentor that loved to build airplanes, was very good at it, and made me an offer I couldn't refuse so I decided that I would take the plunge. I'm not a quitter so I knew going in that I would stay until the end regardless of the out come. I'm quite glad I did! You may be quite surprised at how the building bug gets into your system and grows. One beauty is that the days you can't fly you can build. That's when you can get into a zone and go with the flow. Some days you walk away 10' tall and others you wonder how you could be so stupid to begin such a thing.

When you are done, if you are honest with yourself, you know exactly what you have and whether or not it's worth having. Given the space to build I would do it again and have already sourced another engine for conversion. But presently I just don't have the resources or place to build but if/when I do it will likely be a Peitenpol with Corvair power. Great open cockpit low and slow kinda flying.
 
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My perfect experimental home built is where i buy it already made and flying and the just update / putz on it when I want to turn a wrench.
 
WDD said:
My perfect experimental home built is where i buy it already made and flying and the just update / putz on it when I want to turn a wrench.
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That's a great deal of enjoyment also! But there is the part of not knowing how something was done that gets frustrating when you need to figure it out but have no clue.

As an example I recently spent time troubleshooting my strobes as they were not operating correctly. Trying to find which of the 24 wires on the grounding tab I needed would have been tedious and especially so laying on my back under the panel. Having built it and writing up a wiring diagram along with wire numbers and a corresponding wire chart made the work much easier.

I have a couple of hangar mates that like to tinker and on poor weather days we repair our airplanes while we hangar talk!
 
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Daleandee said:
I have a couple of hangar mates that like to tinker and on poor weather days we tinker while we hangar talk!
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There has to be something to respond to that - it seems like a hanging lob just begging for a snarky / witty reply, but nothing comes to mind.......... :(
 
WDD said:
There has to be something to respond to that - it seems like a hanging lob just begging for a snarky / witty reply, but nothing comes to mind.......... :(
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I did an edit ... hope it relieves your snarky comment moment ... :cool:

One pilot's wife used to call her husband, "Mr. Piddle" as she said that's what he always did with his airplane. Yep ... I'll leave that alone! :rolleyes:
 
Daleandee said:
I did an edit ... hope it relieves your snarky comment moment ... :cool:

One pilot's wife used to call her husband, "Mr. Piddle" as she said that's what he always did with his airplane. Yep ... I'll leave that alone! :rolleyes:
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:D
 
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