Skykits Corporation presents the Savannah

Build Log: Page 7                             

page 1     page 2     page 3     page 4    page 5    page 6      page 7     page 8     page 9

 Total time to this point:   169 hours 47 minutes. 

All the structural components of the aircraft are finished at this point.  The wings and fuselage are completed as are all the tail surfaces.  The engine is installed with all it's accessories and the wiring is completed.  In a picture from the previous page, you can see the wiring harness which comes with the kit.  All the sensor wires have connectors attached and plug directly onto the engine.  The wires terminate in a 16-pin screw-in AMP

connector at the firewall.  You can see the voltage regulator and starter solenoid as well.     The Savannah comes with an electric fuel pump.  There is also a mechanical fuel pump on the engine.  The blue tubing is the fuel line.  Fuel flows from the wing tanks to the reservoir tank in the rear fuselage.  It continues on to the electric fuel pump and then to the mechanical pump.  From there it goes to the two carburetors, the fuel

pressure gauge and back to the main tanks via a return line.       The clear plastic bottle on the right of the picture is the overflow for the cooling system.  The Rotax 912 has water-cooled cylinder heads and air-cooled cylinders.

A great deal of time was spent designing and installing the wiring for the radio, intercom, stick grips, LED trim indicator and strobe system.  Full colour CADD drawings were produced so that future Savannah kit builders who wished to install these items could benefit from our work.  As the radio etc. are not part of the kit and may not be installed by all builders, pictures are included here but no log was kept of the hours involved in the design and installation. 

Here's the finished instrument panel,      with the M760 radio, LED trim indicator and PS Engineering intercom. 

The coolie hat on the stick grips controls the elevator trim servo.  There is a radio PTT switch (unseen) on the front of each grip and

the top right pushbutton remotely switches frequencies on the radio.  Here's a view of the back of the panel.     This is a close-up of the gauge side of the panel.  The orange harness coming from the left side of the picture comes with the kit.  All the connectors are attached and

the wires are simply plugged onto the gauges.    Here's a picture of the back of the panel showing the intercom (gold) and the radio.

  This is the area behind the pilot where the wiring for all the accessories comes together. The Whelen power unit for the strobes is

on the right.  The small black box between the terminal blocks is a relay to allow either stick grip to control the elevator trim.    

The rest of the building process consisted of some housekeeping duties such as installing the static pressure port.  Here it is from the inside of the

forward fuselage of the Savannah,   and from the outside.     At this time, the antenna for the radio was also installed. 

  The engine cowling was fitted after having the Dzus fasteners attached and the top vent closed off so that air from the propeller was

directed down for cooling.     Time was spent adjusting rudder pedals, attaching control cables, installing the firewall insulation, tightening the landing gear brackets, adding the door brackets to the wing root and other small chores.  Total time spent was 15 hours and 10

minutes until finally this occurred.     And off we go to the airport. 
 

Total time to this point:   184 hours 57 minutes. 

page 1     page 2     page 3     page 4    page 5    page 6      page 7     page 8     page 9