Pitot mast fabrication and mounting | 12.26.2020

Worked on the pitot mast fabrication and mounting.

Started with the angle cut pitot mast and a piece of flat steel.

Sanded, cut mast

Flat steel cut/ground to shape

Once I had those two pieces I welded them together using a flux core (ew) welder. Gross, but it's what I have and it's definitely good enough for securing a piece that'll never be seen. I'll spare you the pictures of the welds before they were cleaned up... embarrassing. Let's just say I'm not a welder. They're functional.

Once they were welded together, I used a drill to remove most of the center material, and then cleaned up with rest with a dremel cutoff wheel and then sanding wheel.

Drilled out.

After cutting and sanding.

 

After that was done, I installed the pitot tube to the mast and did a bunch of test fits. Once I was satisfied with how I had bent the flange, I applied structural adhesive to the mount and pulled it down into place.

Mast installed on pitot tube.

 

The plane was then leveled. The mast was aligned to the centerline of the plane and also leveled vertically. I held the horizontal level slightly high, as that's where it ended up and I figured that'd be better than low. I spent a lot of time getting this as close to perfect as I could, but in reality, the Garmin install manual says that the pitot can be within +/-5 degrees from alignment with the centerline of the plane and the same for horizontal leveling. That's a huge range, and from some reading, apparently pitot tubes just aren't that sensitive.

That's all for tonight!
- Jeff