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Seeking pics showing internal wingtip clearances....

Flyin'Bryan

Well Known Member
...from anyone that has installed AeroLED Aerosun VX Wingtip landing lights and pulsar or NS combination nav/strobe lights, AND a Bob Archer model 1 wingtip Nav Antenna. I have been looking at Archer antennas on the ACS website and pouring over the Forums here, and while I am able to find several "external" photos of the wing tip lighting, I cannot find ANY that were taken of the inside guts of the wingtip.

I basically want to get a feel for clearances when incorporating an Archer wing tip antenna with the tip lights mentioned above, and also find out what issues anyone may have had while performing this installation. I'm also curious about any 8s that are now flying with this installation and what issues or reports you may have about that. I already have the lights, but I don't have the antenna yet.

I have been reviewing many VAF threads circa 2014 through 2016 about wing tip light installations. This revealed that there is ALOT of text-based discussion on this topic, but unfortunately not very many photos are posted.

Since it is my firm belief that pictures are worth well more than a thousand words in most cases, I'm really looking for some pics of the inside of your wingtips that show relative clearances of the previously mentioned components, and any advice for dealing with any issues with this installation.
 
Here you go. Antenna performs great. Very light and acceptable strobe noise noticed on intercom music input with volume turned up. Nav antenna works well.
IMG_4662_zpshsmtqfr0.jpg
 
Very nice arrangement!

Thanks much for the pic Jeff, and congrats on getting your bird airborne and done with phase 1. The strobe noise issue has been reported by other builders as well, and I find it interesting that it seems to occur in varying degrees. As I recall, most of this seems to be related to grounding issues of one sort or another. If I am seeing things correctly, it looks like you grounded the lights locally. Glad to know that this is working well for you.

My main concern was with the clearance between the front of the antenna and the back of the landing light, but your pic clearly shows that this is definitely not a problem at all.

My plan for the antenna wiring was to follow some other builder's methods and run it through its own isolated set of wire run holes that I drilled on the aft side of each main wing rib. I am doing this to avoid potential RF interference resulting from magnetic fields emanating from other wires. Then I will bring it up to the archer antenna from there.
 
Nav and COM

Going to try both. The COM gets to the other side of the field but we will see. Expect some degradation being 45 off vertical.



 
Thanks for the pics Patrick!

You must have read my mind because I am also toying with the idea of installing the com antenna as well. But I am also curious about mounting a comm antenna in one of the gear leg fairings, which is another solution that has been applied by various builders in past years.

I think I definitely like the idea of having one comm antenna "top side" and the other one on the bottom of the fuselage. Combining that with some sort of antenna selector switch for backup and redundancy between the two comm radios would be a nice to have, but I'm not sure if that's do-able or advisable. I will have dual coms and a handheld in my cockpit, since I do plan to do some "as needed" IFR down the road.

I am also considering the hinge mod for my tips as published in the August 2014 issue of Kitplanes magazine by Mike Bullock (an RV 7 driver). Does anyone have some internal shots of the Archer antenna (Nav, Com, or both) with the hinge installation and how you used the hinge as the ground plane for the antenna?

I really appreciate everybody showing me their wingtip "guts!"
 
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