Today while fueling my plane I noticed an RV6 with an interesting AOA arrangement. If it is at all possible I'd like to do the same thing. What was done on this RV looked like two Pitot static ports one on the top surface of the wing and one on the lower surface of the wing both about 15% forward of the main spar and about a 18" inboard of the tip. Can this be done with a Dynon EFIS?
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AOA
- Thread starter jhgeo
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2005
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- 13,226
It sounds like you saw an Advanced Flight Systems AOA system.
The Dynon system needs to be referenced to the pitot pressure, so we can't use the system you saw, since that system relates AOA to an upper/lower pressure difference on the wing, not versus pitot pressure.
Both approaches work fine for the actual measurement of AOA, but if you look, you'll see the Dynon system is much cheaper and you get a free pitot out of it. A second advantage of the Dynon system is that you don't need to worry about water getting in the upper port when it rains, and needing to figure out a way to drain it during a preflight.
The Dynon system needs to be referenced to the pitot pressure, so we can't use the system you saw, since that system relates AOA to an upper/lower pressure difference on the wing, not versus pitot pressure.
Both approaches work fine for the actual measurement of AOA, but if you look, you'll see the Dynon system is much cheaper and you get a free pitot out of it. A second advantage of the Dynon system is that you don't need to worry about water getting in the upper port when it rains, and needing to figure out a way to drain it during a preflight.
Thanks for the quick reply. I actually hadn't thought about water through the top port, it would be a problem here in the Northwest. My biggest problem with the Dynon pitot tube is that I had already plumbed the wing for Vans simple stainless tube. Don't get me wrong, having AOA is worth working this out. Anybody with some slick advice about making the change from Vans standard pitot mount to a Gretz pitot pitot would be a big help to me at this point though. The biggest problem is the hole left in the wing.
If you remove the Vans pitot fitting, you will be left with a circular hole in the bottom skin of, what about 5/8" diameter? Use a piece of scrap sheet metal to make a patch and glue it in, with appropriate spacers to get a flush finish. Make a piece slightly larger than the hole to go on the inside and give you something to glue the flush patch to. You could use Shoe Goo or probably even RTV. If you rough up aluminum with schotchbrite first, Shoe Goo really sticks. The worst thing that can happen is that someday you might find that it fell off and you'd need to make another one.
Pax,
Ed Holyoke
Pax,
Ed Holyoke