Tail section completed

The tail is now complete and ready to move to the mid section.

Here you can see the thrust tube installed with the bell mouth attached. For those of you not familiar with turbine installations the eflux of the turbine sits inside of this bell mouth allowing for air to flow around it.

Here you can see the other end with the after burner nozzle installed and weathered.
The LED burner ring sits just inside here and will light up at certain preset throttle settings giving the visual imitation of the real thing, but not the noise unfortunately.

Burner lights

I need to install the burner lights and get the wiring sorted out. For those who do not know the burner lights simulate visually the afterburner function. When a certain pre determined throttle setting is reached they flicker and then light up stronger and stronger the same way you would see a full scale after burner light up.

These very bright LED's are controlled by a little  controller box that I will place nearer to the front of the plane for C of G reasons. The wiring will need to be routed for this to work as in the previous post and there needs to be a break and plugs attached so the tail can be removed.

The burner bolts into the fuse and then the tail pipe slips inside it.

Here is the wire harness that I need to cut and add connectors too. Waiting for the connectors to arrive. Should be here today.

Tail section work

Finally getting back to the plane again. I have been waiting on parts for the tail section as I cannot complete the mid section until I have all the wiring done in the tail.

There are two lights on the tail on each side. Top ones are amber and bottom ones are white or clear.

You can see the LED now attached to the lens.

Here you can see the tail to mid section break. Not all that unlike the full scale. I will want to be able to remove the tail section for maintenance or replacement of servos etc. so I have to be able to unplug all the wires at the joint. Unfortunately all of the wires are long and so I will need to cut them and put a male and female plug on each one. The tail is also the most difficult section to work on so I took some scrap honey comb cardboard and made up a stand to hold it so I can work on it without damage to the tail and my neck.

Once I have the air lines organized I want to make a perch for the UAT to be installed. This is part of the fuel system and therefore I would like to have it next to the fuel tank. Its purpose is to insure that the fuel that flows to the turbine fuel pump is free of air bubbles. Although there is not any real reason to have to service this item I would still like it to be removable. ( Murphy's law principal )
This is where it will go more or less so now I need to get started on a perch for it.

There are a lot of air lines to deal with and the fuse is 11.5 feet long so I try to route them as neatly as possible.
One way to do this is to run them through a tube. I like these cool tubes because they are light heat protective to 600 degrees F and go around corners. Duralite sell these tubes in different diameters and colours.
Please feel free to comment or ask any questions about anything in the Hangar Deck posts.

There is a bunch of wiring and air lines that will be routed through the plane to the nose section but before I can tidy these up I need to install the fuel tank which is like putting a square tube in a round hole. First the tank has to be plumbed and pressure tested to make sure there are no leaks.

Behind my hand and in front of the tank I will need to make a perch for the air trap which goes between the turbine and the fuel tank.

In the top picture you can also see the hydraulic system for the main gear. It needed to be bled and is now tested and works great. Unfortunately in order to get the tank in I will need to remove it. This can be accomplished without removing any of the hydraulic lines hopefully.

Another task that needs to be done well the plane is in pieces is the landing lights. The nose gear light I needed to make a bracket for to attach to the oleo and the main gear light needed to have brackets to attach them ( one on each main gear door) to the doors.You can tell by the heat sink on the end that this light will be seen on final with no problem.