Tuesday, July 18, 2023

July update

 I've added a Blue Sea marine grade cigarette lighter on a 15 AMP circuit off the VPX J12-2.  It's mounted on the opposite side of the headset jacks on the co-pilot headrest.  The VPX is programmed to turn the circuit on when the Alt Field is turned on.  Otherwise, it can be turned on through the Dynon VPX interface.

The 415 O2 bottle and regulator will probably go in the copilot's extended strake.  My neighbor gave me some taller bottles that would have to be mounted behind the seat back. 

I've made a "double bazooka" ADS-B UAT 978 MHz antenna and mounted it near the copilot's rudder pedals.  The 1090ES transponder annular slot antenna sets in the most forward space ahead of the pilot's pedals.  I'm hoping the transponder antenna is in a slightly lower plane and cants forward a little so should reduce how much signal is hitting the 978 antenna.   The Dynon installation manual specifies there should be a 24" separation between the antennas.  I didn't recall seeing that several years ago so will look at the older manual to see if that was added in the updated manual.

Today, I'll fly to fly to KRPH for fuel and monitor the ADS-B IN as it had been losing signal West of XBP.   I also want to see if I can pick up the VOR near KMW after departing KRPH.  Using the VOR's will be handy since there are (currently 53) NOTAMed GPS and ADS-B outages in the CONUS.

On our last Friday night Zoom call it was nice to have some folks thank me for posting videos.  More than once I've heard "looks like you're landing fast".   I think the GoPro causes that speed illusion as I have a video riding my motorcycle and the video makes it look quite a bit faster.  But a Cozy isn't a Cessna either, so if you're used to a 152, yeah...the Cozy is landing faster.   I can drag the Cozy around the pattern behind a 150 now, but when they're flying square patterns at 1500' MSL at our 850' MSL airport, there's not much chance of getting back to the runway when they extend downwind a couple miles.  I'm preferring oval patterns, pulling power when abeam the numbers.  I need to remember to ask at control tower fields for a short approach if their patterns aren't busy.

Edit-The double bazooka for ADS-B didn't seem to work as well as the annular slot for some reason, at least setting on the ground and where it was positioned.   I found a bad Dynon module the next day and replaced it.




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