hotrod180 wrote:
http://www.fadodge.com/cargo-tie-downs-rings/

http://www.fadodge.com/cargo-tie-down-base-plate/

FA Dodge is a bit high on those dudes. Try this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000I5ALW4/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1493570566&sr=8-2&pi=AC_AA280_QL65&keywords=ancra+ring

All kinds of goodies: http://www.ancra.com/aircraft/pdf/AncraAircraft-Catalog403.pdf



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Great reference, thanks. The Ancra website will help to get the cargo options to work well with the seat rails.


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Almost done with the new mods to my 185. New panel is in and being tested. As you can see in the photos, Ace Aviation in Renton has done a great job on the wiring bundles. All of the instruments are plug and play for easy maintenance and repair. We have no analog round dials left. All of the sub panel switching is new, using TTx switches. The breaker panel is also new.
All of the lights are now LED, including the strip under the glare shield and around the baggage area. We replaced most of the old fiberglass soundproofing with lightweight closed cell foam. With the three-blade prop I put on last year, it should be a ton quieter than it used to be.
Put in the Atlee-Dodge folding rear seats and quick-release tie-downs so we should be able quickly to go from pax to equipment and back without leaving stuff behind.
Still to go in are the BAS shoulder straps for the rear seats.
Now, I just have to remember how to fly it!


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Pictures look familiar. Your airplane had Edo amphibs in the past, but are on Aerocets now. I have all the same brackets. The location of your electronic ignition is where my firewall mounted battery lives now. I wonder if I've lost the option of electronic ignition now, or if there are mounting location options. You have an autopilot. I've been told that the flat floor baggage compartment mod and the autopilot have a conflict, but it can be resolved. You'd have to find a new spot for your battery.

Baggage nets are high on my list. I like how you drilled an extra hole and mounted the base for the removable ring in the front seat shoulder harness hole. I'll look into whether I can do that. Wouldn't work for you in the third row shoulder harness hole? What did you do in the middle row?

Nice choices overall. Thanks for the photos and write up.

Looks great! Is the light above the cargo area switched from the front or do you have a switch in the back by the door?

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The back light is switched from the front with the flood lights.


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Wow! Looks great.
Lighting at the baggage area is a nice touch--
don't think I've ever seen that done before.

G2Gorder wrote:


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Is that a battery box hanging from the top of the fuselage? You've done some interesting stuff and I appreciate the pics of everything.

-asa

asa wrote:

G2Gorder wrote:


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Is that a battery box hanging from the top of the fuselage? You've done some interesting stuff and I appreciate the pics of everything.

-asa

Looks like a ski tube to me Asa.

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A1Skinner wrote:]Looks like a ski tube to me Asa.

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Ahhhh, that makes more sense.. I now see what looks like a mounting point further aft which would make sense with a ski tube. Although that doesn't seem like much room for skis in terms of width/height.

-asa

It is on floats so it is a fishing rod tube!


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I'm interested in your install of BAS shoulder harnesses in the rear seats. Be good to follow the process and see some pics when it's done. Keep up the good work!

Just got my Skywagon back after a long process of avionics and interior updates. No more analog instruments now and no more incandescent lights. Here are some (somewhat crappy) pics of the finished panel, lights, seats and tie downs. Still working out the rear seat shoulder belts, so nothing to show yet on that project.
New Garmin G500 and MidContinental standby instrument.
New ignition switches for mags and electronic ignition. New lower panel switches. The recognition lights are the new LED tail beacon (red forward and white aft) and the wingtip strobes. The landing switch turns on the LED wing tip floods and both LED cowl lights. Lighting switch in the taxi position turns on the cowl taxi light (narrower beam). That switch in the pulse position alternates both wingtip floods and both cowl lights.

New recessed headset jacks for all four seats. Right seats both fore and aft have music input jack in case pax don't want to listen to the pilot talking!

New engine monitor to go with new GAMI fuel injection. Should enable effective operations both rich of peak and lean of peak. Also accurate fuel usage and fuel remaining.

All new breaker panel. You can't see it with the panel mounted, but Ace Aviation did an incredible job with the wiring bundles. All of the avionics are connected with quick release connectors behind the panel so that repairs and upgrades should be fast and painless.

Crappy picture, but the LED flood lights imbedded in the bottom of the glare shield are alternating red and white, which can be controlled separately to preserve night vision.

Cabin flood light (LED) and two LED map lights. The map lights are controlled by the two knobs in the picture. The flood lights for both the cabin and the new LED lights around the baggage area are controlled with a knob under the prop control. Under the throttle and mixture controls are rheostat switches for the brightness of the pilot side stack and the radio stack, respectively.
Will post some more pictures of the new folding seats and the cargo tie-downs.



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Some bad photos (I think that I might have hit a filter button on my iPhone) of the folding rear seats and cargo tie-downs.

The seat back cushions are Velcro-attached so you can fold the seats up.

The locking attach points for the seat legs.

Quick release cargo attach points immediately above and behind the front seats.

Another attach point above the window post above and behind the rear seats.

Attach points at the top of the rear baggage compartment. Note the LED flood lights inside the baggage opening.


Ace Aviation installed two strips of cargo tie-downs behind the rear seats for highly adjustable options for cargo.
Next post will be of the LED lights outside the cockpit.


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Light photos.

New LED tail beacon.

LED navigation and strobes on wing tips.

Wingtip LED flood lights.

Cowl LED lights (one on either side of air filter).

Wingtip lights lit.

Tail navigation light lit.

Not a light, but gear inspection mirrors are key to amphibian operations to ensure that the gear is where you think it is. One on each wing allows the pilot to check that all four wheels are up for water landing or down for runway landing.

Lots of thanks for Kurt, Rulon, Paul, Mannie and all of the others at Ace Aviation for their skill and hard work to ensure that this project was done professionally and well.


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Looking great, nice work!


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Looks great! I'm curious if there's a specific reason you went with the JPI over the EI engine monitor? I'm shopping for my 206 and struggling to decide between the 2...

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I really like the Ancra cargo tie downs. I'm unsure though that I want to drill a second anchor plate beside each of the single point seat belt attach points. It's got me thinking though.

JPI vs. EI: JPI and all its features are integral in one enclosure. With the EI, there are modules that separate and have to be located in or along the course of the wiring harnesses. My understanding is that they're not as tidy an installation. I'm also of the opinion that their probes do not respond quite as fast as JPI probes, which might make finding peak EGT a bit less reliable depending on the rate you twirl out the mixture knob.

Thanks. I had a JPI (the small round one ~ 730?) and had read good things about JPI. This was before I read Big Renna's views on engine monitors. I had the 930 ordered, so really couldn't go back. So far, I am just learning how it works. Went out today to try the leaning procedures. Didn't work particularly well, but more to try. We flew to 1,000 feet and tried to get to lean of peak by about 50 degrees. Tried the JPI procedure. Lean to where you think you will be about 125 degrees rich of peak (I chose 1400). Then let it run for about 30-60 seconds to stabilize. Push the leaning button and it flashes LOP. Start leaning slowly. When the EGT rises 15 degrees, one of the cylinders starts flashing a box around that cylinder to show that it is getting leaning info. Keep leaning to when it flashes LEANEST (the first cylinder to peak) and keep going to when it flashes RICHEST (the last cylinder to peak). Then the columns in the graphical display are dropped down from the top, showing how far you are from the peak EGT. We kept leaning per the manual, but couldn't get to 50 degrees lean of peak without seeming to lose a ton of power. Tried the manual ops for ROP, and that seemed to work better. Will try again to see if I can get this LOP working better. Just read Pelican's Perch #63 and #64 on AVweb, so maybe I will be smarter next time.


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Slightly better picture of the rear seats folded up and the seat rails that are available for tie-downs.



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