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Paul Dye's RV-8 Cockpit Tour

DeltaRomeo

doug reeves: unfluencer
Staff member
(Taken during Paul's visit to 52F today. Placed here so it will be searchable in the archives and so that Paul can chime in to answer any questions). dr

Key words: Paul Dye, IronFlight, RV-8, Cockpit, Virtual Tour

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2nd batch of pictures of Paul's cockpit

batch 2 of 3

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Where did your switch guards come from?

Some of your switch guards look like guards I've seen in photos of the Shuttle cockpit. Perhaps you offered your RV-8 as an "Atmospheric Switch Guard Test Vehicle?"

Seriously...where did you buy them?
Cheers,
Martin
 
Switch Guards

"Where did I get them?" and "Where can YOU get them?" are actually two different questions.... :rolleyes:

They are available from Perihelion Designs - I've bought a few things from them, and you can find them on the web...

The reason we use them in the Shuttle is to make sure that we don't change switch positions when bumping itno things in zero-g. They are REALLy useful in the airplane as finger-holds in turbulence!

Paul
 
Wow Paul, very nice, I like it a lot.

I'm sure I'll think about a lot of questions when I get closer to that stage, but the first coule that pops into mind is about the paint job..
1) what did you use as interior paint & colour,
2) your application method, during what stage of construction did you painted.
3) how is it holding up, and what about touch ups?
4) Anything you'd do different during the paint proces.

Thanks,
Rudi
 
panel layout

Paul,

Nice setup, like the shuttle guards too. Question for you or any other RV-8 panel experts.

I'm thinking of using a Dynon-180 (bigger display with EFIS/EMS combo), and my tendency would be to group the analog backups on one side, rather than have a/s on one side and alt on the other. Obviously, a/s, alt, vsi and an autopilot (thinking the pictorial pilot also) would be crowded on one side... But wondering about the human factors (say your EFIS goes out IFR and you've got to look back and forth alot).

Figure you'd have some human factors guys at JSC advising you (I worked on the TFCR & CCF, and there must be a million experts there).

Thanks
 
Interior Finish....

Thanks Rudi!

I am probably going to be snubbed by all the real craftsmen around here after I reveal my interior secret, but here goes.....

1) Industrial "machinery gray" rattle-can paint! And don't let the "Industrial" fool you into thinking I spent a lot of money....just picked it up at Home Depot. I did some tests for scratch and wear resistance with some different paints, and this stuff did pretty well. At least as well as my painting skills...

2) I just primed and painted each component as they were finished. Pieces that were small enough, I baked in the oven for about three hours @ 250 degrees (The wife was overseas at the time, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her...). The big structure obviously didn't fit in the oven - I just used heat lamps overnight to help it cure nice and hard.

Want to make a spray can "handle" like a gun? Home Depot sells a little plastic handle for about three bucks that gives you a trigger and everything. Really - try it!

3) It is holding up amazingly well! I have been in and out of the cockpit countless times since I painted it well over a year ago, and have still to scratch the paint under my feet. I am surprised that my heels haven't scraped it yet (under the rudder peddles).

4) The only place I have a few scratches are where I painted over the powder-coated parts - I probably should have roughed those up a bit more before priming and painting.

So why did I do it the way I did? I hate mixing two-part stuff, and hate cleaning up spray guns even more! It's that simple....and I'm having Grady paint the exterior so that I don't have to deal with it!

Paul
 
Everything is a compromise....

srv said:
Paul,

Nice setup, like the shuttle guards too. Question for you or any other RV-8 panel experts.

I'm thinking of using a Dynon-180 (bigger display with EFIS/EMS combo), and my tendency would be to group the analog backups on one side, rather than have a/s on one side and alt on the other. Obviously, a/s, alt, vsi and an autopilot (thinking the pictorial pilot also) would be crowded on one side... But wondering about the human factors (say your EFIS goes out IFR and you've got to look back and forth alot).

Figure you'd have some human factors guys at JSC advising you (I worked on the TFCR & CCF, and there must be a million experts there).

Thanks


Very insightful question/comment!

I did have a lot of discussions with my cockpit design gurus and test pilot buddies before I finalized the panel. If I would do anything differently today, I would have gotten 2 1/4" ASI and Altimeters, just to save on real estate, but I like the final layout because of what I was used to. In the AA1B that I flew for over 20 years, the lower left side of the panel clustered the clock, compass, and T&B with the ASI. I found thatthis tightly grouped set of instruments was really good for partial panel flying (if anything can be said to be good for that!), and I got comfortable with it. Having altitude right there would be nice, but as long as you have airspeed, you have some idea whether you are slowing or speeding up, and therefore if you are climbing or diving. I just have found that when I am partial panel, I rarely look at the altimeter as much as the other stuff.

Of course, with the Pictorial Pilot, I'm unlikely to be hand flying partial panel anyway (not that I don't practice that way), because as long as it is working, I'll just engage the autopilot to keep me flying straight and level, and spend my limited brain cells trying to think my way out of the mess I've gotten myself into...

The rest of the panel layout came from a desire to have similar functions grouped together (electrcial is ALL on the right sub-panel, Fuel and engine is ALL over on the left), and having switches where my hands naturally fall to them. Other little human factors things were leaving the avionics protruding (rather than flush) to provide "finger ledges" for operating in turbulence, etc.

So yes, I had a lot of outside help and comments in the design phase, and it paid off! Now I am trying to figure out where to put my Altrak button when I install that....needs to be for the left hand, since I want to keep flying with my right until it's engaged, but the left side doesn't have any good real estate left.....It'll come to me!

Paul
 
Ironflight said:
Want to make a spray can "handle" like a gun? Home Depot sells a little plastic handle for about three bucks that gives you a trigger and everything. Really - try it!
Paul
Paul,

VERY nice job! I too plan on using the gray aviation paint from Home Depot but had not thought about baking the parts to harden the paint. Thanks for the tip.

Here's a picture of the handle you mentioned. I agree, well worth the $3. Two tricks to using it, after every few passes, wipe the nozzle with a paper towel, this will eliminate drips. Second, heat the can before spraying, this will make the paint flow much better and give you a more uniform look.
 
Got annunciator?

Paul,

Cool panel - amazing that you were able to get all of that into the front of an RV-8! After iterating for months on my panel, I understand the challenge.

One question: I've been looking for a good multi-light annunciator panel. Where did you find yours?

Thanks!
tjn

Tim Naugler
RV-6A QB Kit 60500
N251RV reserved
Kirkland, WA
 
Nice Panel

Paul, your panel shows your attention to detail and I agree with your comments on layout and it shows you definitely thought things though.
Congratulations on a fine airplane.
I hope you make it though your withdrawal symptoms during your paint period.

All the best,

Roger Ping.
 
Thanks Guys!

Appreciate all the compliments ! Paint scheme is firming up, but not yet quite ready for prime time.... as long as it's still bare aluminum, I'm not committed! :)

Paul
 
Usb?

one of the photos show what appears to be a pair of USB ports----------do you have an on-board comp??? Or are they for downloading data logging equip, or up-loading data into your glass panel, or?????

Thanks Mike S
 
USB Ports...

Yes Mike, those are the USB inputs/outputs for the GRT Display Units. They are used to upload software changes TO the DUs, and also to record flight data FROM the DU's. I can stick in a 256 Meg Thumb drive, start recording, and store a couple hours worth of flight test data. Due to some really amazing work by Carl Morgan (software Guru and New Zealand RV builder), we can then decode the data on the PC and doa lot of post-fligt data analysis.

I always keep a thumb drive in my kneeboard pocket, and routinely put it in at the start of flights. Poor man's flight recorder!

Paul
 
I'm in Wichita at the moment so I'm just seeing this tonight. I just wanted to say that your layout and attention to detail is a very nice example of some fine engineering. Sweet.
 
A couple more comments...

I got a couple of private questions regading my placement of the GNS 430 on the right. I'll share the reasoning here, since someone asked about human factors...I orginally planed to put the GNS 430 on the left side, so that I could keep flying with my right hand while inputting data, flight plans, revised "Direct to..." waypoints, etc. with my left. A couple of my Test Pilot buddies who looked at it said "we didn't know you were left handed!"

Well, I'm not, and their point was that studies have shown that it is a lot easier to do fine motor skill stuff (like dialing in waypoints with a knob and pushing selector buttons) with your dominant hand than it is with your other hand. At the same time, it is pretty easy to fly with either hand, as most people who jump between yokes and sticks and left and right hands can attest. I had my doubts, but went with their idea. I have since proved to myself that they were right - even dialing frequencies on the #2 Comm on the left side is more difficult (with my left hand) than it is on the Garmin (with my right hand).

Either way is obviously do-able, but having the navigator on the right really does work better for me. (Of course, I still think we shoudl be using a keyboard interface, not twiddling dials to select alphanumerics, but I think that is another electronics generation away....oh, I see they're advertising it in Flying already!)

Oh, and there was one comment about fitting so much into the -8 panel. To be honest, I did have to move a couple of the upper screw holes and carve just a little bit out of the upper fixed portion of the panel to have clearance for the outboard round instruments. Yup - it is really tight!

Paul
 
sheesh

I just noticed the engine monitor on the floor... There's probably a pop-up HUD somewhere also.
 
Nicely done panel and layout, very similar to what I have been dreaming up lately. I feel like I am a bit out of the loop. Do you actually work for..? NASA? Are you a engineer, astronaut, maint tech, ect.? forgive me if everyone but me knows this info but I noticed the comments on the switch guards ect and I get that feeling.
Funny thing I just read the post about your 430 on the right and I also figured to put all radios on the left.....ummm I am right handed also and can also fly with my left quite well......may have yet another iteration of my panel in the works.......number....yeh right like Im counting.
N282RV
working on finish kit
 
When I was a teen-aged "hangar rat", I was just hoping to make my living in aviation somehow - never dreamed I'd end up moving to Houston and being one of those guys in a white shirt and skinny black ties in Mission Control flying space ships....but things turn out in woderful and strange ways!

I am a Lead Flight Director for the Space Shuttle Program (also did a stint on the Space Station side of the house when we put the first crew onboard) here at NASA's Johnson Space Center. I don't have a crew cut (you've got to have enough hair to do even that!), but I do own, and ocasionally wear, a silver vest.....{Gene Kranz wore a white vest becasue he was White Flight.}

It's a great job because we get to fly one of the most amazing aircraft ever built - nothing flies even remotely as high or as fast. But I gottta tell ya, building and flying the RV-8 has been one of the most personally rewarding things I have ever done in aviation!

Paul
 
Ironflight said:
It's a great job because we get to fly one of the most amazing aircraft ever built - nothing flies even remotely as high or as fast. But I gottta tell ya, building and flying the RV-8 has been one of the most personally rewarding things I have ever done in aviation!

But the big question is, do ya ever get any stick time in the T-38s at Ellington, and can you sneak me in on a ride in one?!? As long as I don't have to buy the gas... ouch! Ah well, who needs a T-38 when I'll have my own little fighter plane that'll be just a wee bit cheaper to operate.

Speaking of Gene Kranz, the Lone Star Museum in Galveston has a Murphy Renegade on display, sign says Gene built it... does he ever get to fly that thing, or is he working on something else?

John
Houston
RV-8 Mounted the engine yesterday, finally!
 
Gene's Murphy....

Gene did build that airplane, about a dozen years ago - and it is immaculate! The attention to detail makes mine look like it was built by a lumberjack with an axe and a penknife....Unfortunately, it has never been flown!

Gene's story is that when it was finished, he hadn't flown anything in years, and needed to get current - and being a stickler for doing things right, that was going to mean a big time commitment. That was soon after he left NASA however, and he was doing a lot of traveling, giving motivational speeches around the world. (He was also flying as Flight Engineer on Lone Star's B-17, and that kept him busy too!).

Anyway, things kept getting in the way, and the service bulletins kept stacking up on the engine - to the point where last year, he told me that the whole engine needs to go back to the factory to be rebuilt before he would fly it...

(On the day I flew the -8 for the first time, I sent him a note saying that I'd spotted him ten years in the race to fly a homebuilt, and I STILL beat him... :D )

Congratulations on hanging your engine! I don't think I make make Weiser tomorrow due to a Fire Department commitment, but I'll catch you next month - you could be flying before you know it! (I was about six months from engine hanging to first flight.)

Paul
 
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Stick, Shuttle

Paul,

Fantastic panel, a new standard in design. Two questions,,, where did you get your front stick bent and what is the offset and what is the status of the Shuttle.

Thanks for all your posts,

Adam
Finish RV-8
 
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placement of the 430

Thanks Paul for the input on the placement of the 430 and other things that you need to adjust on the left. I am considering putting my 430 and second comm in the middle under the EFIS.

Any thoughts on that would be appreciated.
 
Stick, Center Mount GNS, Shuttle....

First, Thomas is right - I had the stick bent by Todd at RVWoody. I think the offset is about 1.500 inches (OK, I cheated and looked at his drawing...). Really fits me nicely!

Second, I think that a center mount for the GNS and Radio would work out pretty well, but the best thing to do is to mock it up with cutouts, sit in your cockpit, and see how it works for you. That, to me, is the coolest thing about custom-building your own airplane - you can make everything fit exactly right. Might not work for anyone else - but it doesn't have to! I have always liked a center stack, but I wanted a dual-screen EFIS, and that takes up all that room.

Shuttle status? Well, there are literally thousands of people working multiple shifts every day, and at some places seven days a week to solve the challenegs that we have set before us. (I know a number of them read this Forum and are buildign their own RV's as well!) The Shuttle is still one of the most technically on-the-edge machines ever built, the environment in which we fly is totally unforgiving, and you've got to get it right. The bottom line is that while we'd like to fly in May (and are working hard to that date), we won't go until we're ready.

You want to work like an aerospace professional? When someone asks you when your project is going to fly, just answer "It'll fly when it's ready...and not before!" Set your personal standards for safe operation, then make yourself a promise that you won't compromise on those standards to meet someone else's schedule.

Paul Dye
"Iron Flight"
 
Cool cockpit

Good looking cockpit Paul. As a wanna be builder someday that's the style I would want in my Rv 8.

Thanks for sharing and giving me some good ideas.
 
Ironflight said:
. If I would do anything differently today............, Paul
Absolutely stunning cockpit environment Paul! It certainly raises the bar on my future efforts with the -8 project and brought into sharp focus my vague ideas of how to lay things out when the time comes. Thanks for sharing. You should be very, very proud.
Best of luck,

Rick Galati RV-6A "Darla"
RV-8A empennage complete
 
Thanks Again!

I really appreciate all the comments guys - hope I can see all of your panels someday! The way electronics are going, mine will be obsolete any day now... :p

This afternoon I discovered one other thing I might have done different...put on dual heat muffs! I took her up to 17.5K today (didn't want to bother center for a clearance, so had to quit before 18K) to write down some performance numbers, and it was getting a might bit chilly up there! Tried out a new O2 bottle and reg with my mask and helmet as well - very nice system - the bottle fits where the passenger's right leg would go, with the valve right above the foot well.

17,500' - 169 KTAS - 48% HP (2510/15.3) - 6.5 gph. Let's see, that would give an absolute endurance of 6.46 hours, and an absolute range of 1092 Nautical miles. Holy relief-tube Batman! :eek:

Paul
 
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Ironflight said:
17,500' - 169 KIAS - 48% HP (2510/15.3) - 6.5 gph. Let's see, that would give an absolute endurance of 6.46 hours, and an absolute range of 1092 Nautical miles. Holy relief-tube Batman! :eek:

Wait, was that indicated or true airspeed?
 
Kias

Surely that was 169 KTAS, if, at 17,500 the temp was standard, an indicated airspeed of 169 knots would give a TAS of 222 knots. Don't think an 8 will do that on 48% power.

Man, if it does, I will invest in a heated motorcycle suit and a good oxygen system
 
Oops!!!

So much for my typing skills (which are legendarily bad....).

Yup TAS !! (corrected in original post...)

Paul
 
Tis / Gtx330?

Paul, Are you running a GTX330? If so, are you getting traffic on your 430 or on the GRT EFIS?
 
Gtx 327

No Mickey, I didn't go for the 330 - decided to live with the 327. I haven't stepped up to traffic advisories in my personal flying yet - kind of waiting to see what shakes out as the dominant technology I guess. Fortunately, it is not hard to upgrade (same amount of panel real estate) when I want.

Paul
 
Traffic

Thanks for the info. It is kind of a hard decision today, with rumors of TIS being turned off, and ADS-B looking so far off into the future in the US. I think the Australians are moving much faster to ADS-B, so perhaps they will have some innovative products out soon.
 
Extended rudder pedals

Paul

I see many RV8 drivers using extended rudder pedals. I have noticed on my RV8 that has standard pedals, it takes a little concentration to stay off the brakes. Can you buy extended pedals as a simple part swap or are these being made by the builders?
 
Flyrod said:
I have noticed on my RV8 that has standard pedals, it takes a little concentration to stay off the brakes. Can you buy extended pedals as a simple part swap or are these being made by the builders?

Actually, you don't need extenders on your pedals at all, it's really a function of how the stock pedals are drilled on the inboard tabs where the brake master cyls attach. Before I built my rudder/brake pedal assembly I'd heard about the problem of dragging brakes and had seen pics of pedal extenders and bars; when I went to drill my pedals I realized I could fix the problem by simply moving the pedals back (towards firewall) before drilling the master cylinder attach holes. The tabs on the sides of the pedals are big enough to put the holes anywhere you need 'em.

My pedals work fine using this method... with my heels on the floor the pedals are angled back far enough that there is no risk of dragging a brake; I have to make a conscious effort to lift my feet up a bit to apply brake pressure. I might've even gone overboard and angled them too far back; I have to lift my feet up a bit higher than I originally intended, but I'd rather have it this way than be dragging the brakes all the time. Perhaps down the road I could re-drill the holes, or even buy a new pair of pedals. New pedals are $23 each, WD-820-L or R. Here's a pic of the holes I'm yakkin' about.

rv8152du9.jpg
 
That's another good way to do it!

John has another simple way to do things! Some people use a bolt that goes all the way across - I used the pedal extensions because that was something I saw on a web site when I stared. I like the extensions NOT because they keep me off the brakes, but because they fit my ankles well. To answer the question - you just build whatever you want from whatever materials you need. No kit needed....

Paul
 
Ironflight said:
3) It is holding up amazingly well! I have been in and out of the cockpit countless times since I painted it well over a year ago, and have still to scratch the paint under my feet. I am surprised that my heels haven't scraped it yet (under the rudder peddles).

Another good solution for the under-foot areas would be spray-in bed liner. We have a Line-X place here in town that will shoot anything you can get to their shop.

Of course, this is coming from someone who doesn't even have preview plans yet...so I don't know if the floor boards are portable.
 
ops_geek said:
Another good solution for the under-foot areas would be spray-in bed liner. We have a Line-X place here in town that will shoot anything you can get to their shop.

Of course, this is coming from someone who doesn't even have preview plans yet...so I don't know if the floor boards are portable.
That's some good stuff alright. But be careful with material that might grab your heel. You might be getting a quick tour of the ditch on the side of the runway if your foot "grabs" when you don't want it to.

I used two strips of non-skid wing-walk material along the entire length of floorboard, spar to firewall (under the pedals). Then a thin anodized aluminum sheet over that under the (flying/taxiing) heel area. Wear resistant and slick.
 
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