Build log

Fuel shutoff valve

This is one of those jobs that I had been procrastinating for a long time, thinking it was going to be difficult.  It turned out to be very easy, though.  I was struggling a bit trying to think how to orient the fuel shut-off valve to enable remote cable control.  Mounting it on an angle relative […]

ELT installed

I decided to go with just a basic AMERI-KING AK-450 121.5/243 MHz ELT.  After purchasing this a few months ago, I’ve been considering a lot of different places to put it.  I left it until last (of the major avionics/electric installs) to put in, so most of the good places were taken already!  But, using […]

Pedal system

I removed the pedal system from the plane disassembled it and painted it.  A paint I really like for these types of high-wear applications is the Rust-Oleum Hammered Metal paint.  It always go on very nice, great finish and very durable.  Once it dried, I covered the pedal surfaces with a couple layers of heat-shrink […]

Pitch AP servo

I’m using the Dynon Skyview EFIS which has built-in autopilot control.  I have purchased AP servos for both pitch and roll.  Most mount the pitch AP servo on the canard with a separate control arm connection to the elevator torque tube – this is also what I’ve done.  I created an angle bracket to mount […]

Control stick

The previous builder had already constructed a control stick.  It appears that he molded it out of micro and did a very nice job.  I thought quite awhile about how to finish it, though.  Any sort of paint would wear off very quickly.  I finally found some very large i.d. heat-shrink tubing to cover it […]

Pitch trim

The previous builder had assembled the control stick with the Strong Pitch Trim system.  Generally, I liked the system, but there was quite a bit of slop in it, so I disassembled the system entirely and rebuilt it.  I sent the Strong Pitch Trim system back to Alex Strong to be checked out as I’d […]

Fuel level senders

I chose to install capacitance fuel level senders.  The Velocity does have visual indicators of fuel level in the form of sight tubes mounted in the rear strake cutouts, but I suspect that these will not be very easy to see at night, particularly the one on the pilot’s side.  The capacitance fuel senders will […]

Door supports

The Velocities beautiful gull-wing doors need gas-spring supports like you see on a hatch-back car.  This is the only are where I saw that the previous builder made a mistake.  He chose to use very short gas-springs mounted close to the hinge that did not hold up the door properly.  I reverted back to the […]

Annunciator Panel

Rather than just have a row of labeled indicator lights, I wanted to make a custom annunciator panel.  Initially I thought this would be a relatively easy process, but as I started to think more about what I wanted it to do, it got more complicated.  The main purpose of an annunciator panel is to […]