A Christmas Present for N95VT

Those of you familiar with the RV10 series of aircraft may be aware that a number of accidents have been attributed to the doors not properly closing and coming opened during flight.  Despite knowing this I too had an incident in my first year flying 95VT where an improperly closed co-pilot door resulted in an on runway abort.  Thankfully the community has come together to offer a number of improvements to the basic Van’s sliding pin design.

In N95VT I have incorporated three separate upgrades.  The first was a Van’s recommended safety latch.  This device is designed to catch a door that opens and requires a second latch be lifted when opening the door.  I don’t know if I didn’t proper install it but this device just doesn’t take an aggressive enough hold and I have very little faith they would perform their intended purpose if a door opened in fight.  The second device I installed was the planearound bullet pin modification.  This modification extends the end of the pin so there is a greater amount of engagement.  The final modification I corporate is a warning light system designed to be wired to lights on the cockpit dashboard.   Because I was having issues getting the sensors to work during the build process I decided to wire the sensors but not to connect them – a little get flyingitesJ.  But as a Christmas present to N95VT after 3 years and over 350 hours of flight time I finally finished the job. 

The trick to making this system work was building a simple bracket so the sensor can be properly positioned so it is aligned with the bullet end of the pin – where the magnet is located.  One of the primary reasons the FAA approves amateur build aircraft is for “the education of the builder”.  In my case building an airplane has taught me a lot about engines, metal work, brakes systems, exhausts and electrical systems.  Even four years ago when I was finishing the aircraft this simple bracket to properly position the sensor didn’t occur to me . . . but when I looked at it this time it was obvious.

So after building the brackets and tracing the wires to ensure I had properly wired them first time through all that was left to do was program the EFIS.  After tracing the wires and reviewing my wiring documentation I was able to confirm the EFIS saw INPUT 1 as the Left Rear Door pin, and INPUT 3 as the Right Rear Door Pin.  One nice feature of the Advance Flight System EFIS is you can program it to give you a warning caution if the switch is open and then an audible warning when the RPM are above 1500 rpm.

Here is a view of the visual warnings – job complete.