Hooray!
Finally the interior project is essentially done! Just some touch up painting to do. And I still need to fly her down to AeroComfort in San Antonio and have them take measurements for all the additional pockets yet to be installed. I'll get some pictures posted in the next few days.

Of course the new panel project is still underway.

iPad Mini mount
You may recall I removed the whiskey compass and replaced it with a VC compass in the panel. That drew enough comments to get its own thread. The remaining compass bracket mount on the split windshield looked to me like the perfect place to attach a Ram mount for my iPad mini, and it indeed is.


Very very cool.

One step forward two steps back

On this front seems my mode c encoder bit the dust. How'd I find out? The same way I found out my heading indicator (DG) is precessing (under specific conditions), by beginning IFR training and having ATC spot the problems while on an IFR flight with my instructor. Encoder has been replaced and DG is out for service. I'm again grounded for a few days.

Also realized that the nav portion of NavCom 2 had no audio, so it's out for repair as well.

STOP THE MADNESS

On this front I've decided to add a PPonk Gear Beef Up. Figured it a prudent safety precaution since who knows how old the bolt that holds the landing gear on really is, and how much it has been abused - and also since the gear is likely to get a little more side loading with the bigger tires.

Madness indeed!

How do you find the iPad in that location? Does it cloud your view at all?

Have you been hunting bugs in that thing Barnstormer??? What did they ever do to you!

So far I love it in that location. Before I had it clamped to the upper part of the v-brace on the copilot side. I could see it fine but I had to move forward and look around it to see to the right. And the person in the copilot seat couldn't see it at all.

Where it is now I've had no problems with visibility taking off or landing, its closer so easier to operate and see. As you see it in the picture it does not obscure the audio panel, the Apollo GPS, nor the marker beacon lights. If I'm flying VFR, which 99.9999% of my flying is and will continue to be, I can drop it down even further where it will obscure the audio panel switches and Apollo, but improve forward visibility for sightseeing.

Those bugs represent 3.8 hours of IFR training at 4 to 6 thousand feet, plus three T&Ls. Crazy isn't it!

Clever spot for the mini! I had to play with portable mounts this week, since I can't finish the headliner until I get done training some Caravan jump pilots in Colorado. Very disturbing, always landing with far fewer passengers than you take off with. I have a bunch of spare time between drop runs so I have been playing with the 185 while I wait. I did make up this quick & dirty Mini mount from some RAM mounts and a modified holder for the actual mini from a car dash mount. The ram ball & arms are connected to the Pax seat via a pieces of scrap thick angle and a U-bolt and some wing nuts.It can either be hovering over the Pax seat or over the center console, receives fine GPS signal in this position.

The other mount is for the Garmin 796, also made from Angle, plate and some old mount thumbscrew. Allow the 796 to be released from the panel, and tilted to the pilot as well. It actually has a cannon plug behind the panel with power & serial connections. The 796 interfaces with the Garmin SL-30 for comm/nav frequency transfers and the Garmin 330 for traffic. Kind of turn a SL-30 into a GTN-650, but has XM weather.

Sorry about the poor phone pics:



Still can't rotate images


BTW, no bugs up at 14,500' over Colorado in the 185!

I can just imagine that after the jumpers have left, and you are there by yourself without a parachute...."what was that? was that the primary buffer panel?" Kinda like the feeling I get flying over Bryce Canyon, or open water.

Guys, before we start our next reno projects I think we should get together and buy an injection mold and a cnc machine company, and maybe one of those new fangled printers that can print three dimensional things, just think how much easier these projects would be.

Dogpilot, your beautiful photo over the rockies reminded me of one other thing I haven't solved yet, and that is where to mount my oxygen bottle.

I thought about it while putting in the headliner and considered mounting it in the extended baggage area and running the hose forward under the headliner. Can't remember why I didn't like that idea. Perhaps because I couldn't reach the valve from the pilots seat. I certainly could just hang it off one of the front seats, but I'm hoping for a cooler solution. I bought one of those long bottles so I wouldn't need to worry about refilling the bottle on cross country trips. My intention was to strap it to the floor between the seats behind the johnson bar tunnel. That still may be the best place.

Anyone have any solutions they use that they like?

Oh, Dogpilot I like your mounting solutions especially the swing away. Would be cool to have a "friction" hinge system that one could fold or pull out as needed. Ram Mounts are you listening?

I have the 4 place 22 CF bottle in a papose on copilot seat. Had the papose upholstered to match the seat upholstery. Works well and can be removed in several minutes.
Ron

I had the SkyOx long bottle. It was a PIA. I just couldn't find a place to put it. When it was due for Hydro, I went and got a shorter bottle from the local medi-supply and changed the valves (not a big deal, used to work in a dive shop). The papoose concept is one, I have also considered a submarine one under the PAX seat (as it is, it sits on the floor under it). Ryan in Gallup (another 185 junkie) mentioned a person that put a compartment in the wing root just above the pilot's head. In the gap between the headliner forward of the vent. Since I still have not got my headliner in yet (yes, procrastination), I may see if it will fit there, then some 2" web straps and a zipper may be in order before installation of the hated headliner.

While I had the right panel off, I played with a bunch of ideas for mounting. None of the off the shelf methods worked. Everything was just sticking too far (RAM especially) out and it interfered with the right side yoke's free movement full forward. So making one turned out to not only to be cheap, but the only thing that worked. Modifying the understructure of the right side panel is a big no-no. It is actually structural. If one of the brighter feds sees that you have modified it, for an Air Gizmo or the like, you may be looking at a red tag and some DER paperwork. Of course meeting that bright fed, a very overworked guy, is rather remote. My entire right side panel is simply a blank off plate, no mod.

You guys need to spend less time up in the flight levels, and more time close to the ground......these ARE Skywagons after all.

MTV

I'm with you... I was thinking, oxygen????

You guys need to spend less time up in the flight levels, and more time close to the ground......these ARE Skywagons after all.

MTV

I have the 4 place 22 CF bottle in a papose on copilot seat

Yeah what the heck is a Papoose. Here's how I would imagine it would be used in a full sentence:

Only a Papoose would fly a skywagon at flight level

Oh come on, you low sea level guys evidently fly through mountains. We, who live in the mountains, choose to go over them, yes, we are pussies. Living up at 7,200' I don't have to go much higher to need it. I only cleared the Sangre de Cristo mountains by 700' up at 14,500 enroute to Penrose. As it was I had to hand fly it over the top, as the autopilot was getting worried and the terrain warning was getting edgy with all kinds of bitchy warnings.

We where wondering how Garmin selected the TAWS warning voice. They seemed to really nailed the bitchy Betty voice down on the 530. Every decent on the skydive runs it was berating us to pull up, sink rate. I don't know why, we had a perfectly good view of the numbers centered high in the middle of the windscreen, maybe it was the 7,000 fpm decent rate, don't know.

Yes, using Papoose in a sentence is as show tuney as actually knowing what the color "teal" actually is.

Hey Dogpilot, sorry I was just ribbin, the scenario was just askin for it!!! I live at 5000' so I ain't no sea level guy either and have crossed many a mountain dizzy enough that I was wishing I had a Papoose to suck on. Guess I'm just not mature enough to pass up on a good Papoose joke yet

Sorry for Hi-jackin your super cool thread Barnstormer, keep up the good work!!!

You really are a Skalywag.

Actually I need the oxygen cause I saw this really cool looking ridge in a photo of Mount McKinley near it's summit, and I was thinking that maybe........

I had earlier mentioned I needed lights in the panel to illuminate the backup instruments. I hate post lights, ring lights, bezel lights and so on. I love internally illuminated instruments, hate paying for them. So my dilemma was how to light the 4 instruments that are not internally lit. Really illustrated on my night landing the other day. The floods in the 185 are not up to the task. So after playing with EL light strips under the panel, which actually suck, a lot. Well not actually suck, if you like big dark swatches along the top of the instruments. You know, where the really important information is. So I was moving the EL panel around to see what would be best when I found the back side of the yoke is really good.

EL panels can be cut to any shape as long as you have a path for the electricity to flow. So trimming to size is not a problem. They also can be dimmed, in my case with a 1K pot. I do love a 12V airplane, as I can use the stock 12V inverter that came with the panel. It is also small enough to fit inside my yoke. Suddenly the Cessna Spaceship yoke suck less. I cut a piece of ABS Kydex to hold the trimmed 4" square white EL panel and velcro'd the assembly to the back side of the yoke. Luckily my yoke has 12V coming into the map light, so I use that power to power the EL panel. I put the knob on the backside of the yoke for the 1K dimmer pot.

So now I have very low glare lighting for the panel, removable without tools to comply with the rules. All for about $15 via eBay.



Illuminated view:

Excellent idea! Thanks

Now, THAT is cool....

MTV

That is a very cool idea.

Night flying in a single engine plane is the one thing that makes me nervous, so I don't do it, which means I don't much care about panel lighting. But I suppose there could be times where landing just at/after dark could allow me to get to my destination... you've inspired me to give it some more thought.

I've never heard of EL panels before, time for some research. Thanks.