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RV-8 AOA port

olyolson

Well Known Member
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RV-8 with an AFS 5500 Skyview EFIS and a Dynon SV-Adhars pitot & static ports connected and working with the AOA port unused. All I need for AOA is an AOA port somewhere and tubing back to the Adhars.

Read some posts about RV-8 guys putting a rivet on the bottom of a wing somewhere and other ideas like taking aluminum tubing and making a homemade tube under the pitot tube and making a 60 degree bend downward at the tip.

All great ideas and the pop rivet idea sounds like it would work well as an AOA port. Just not sure where to put it. The older AFS AOA Pro had descriptions in the instructions where to put the two ports required but I’m looking for a good location for just one AOA port.

Ideally somewhere near the current Heated pitot tube under the left wing in case this idea doesn’t work I can install a Dynon heated Pitot/AOA tube at a later date.

Where specifically should one AOA port be located on an RV-8 wing?
 
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AOA port

That's what I've done on my 6A, put a pop rivet on the wing lower surface, ahead of the pitot tube. I got the location from a post on VAF by an RV-4 builder. All these models have the same wing section. Mine hasn't flown yet so hopefully the location is correct. I'm not nearby the plane now and can't confirm the measurement but I think it was 17.125" ahead of the lower skin edge. When the wing chord line is level, the angle of incidence at the port location is 20 degrees. The Dynon pitot AOA tube has this angle at 30 degrees however if the port is in the skin I understand that it needs to be a little bit further aft to minimise the effects of turbulence.
 
RV-8 with an AFS 5500 Skyview EFIS and a Dynon SV-Adhars pitot & static ports connected and working with the AOA port unused. All I need for AOA is an AOA port somewhere and tubing back to the Adhars.

Read some posts about RV-8 guys putting a rivet on the bottom of a wing somewhere and other ideas like taking aluminum tubing and making a homemade tube under the pitot tube and making a 60 degree bend downward at the tip.

All great ideas and the pop rivet idea sounds like it would work well as an AOA port. Just not sure where to put it. The older AFS AOA Pro had descriptions in the instructions where to put the two ports required but I’m looking for a good location for just one AOA port.

Ideally somewhere near the current Heated pitot tube under the left wing in case this idea doesn’t work I can install a Dynon heated Pitot/AOA tube

Where specifically should one AOA port be located on an RV-8 wing?

You might check with Advanced Flight on that. When I upgraded my 4500 to a 5400 with SV-ADAHRS and Skyview network. last year, Rob sadly informed me that I would have to abandon my in-wing AoA ports as the 5400 didn't support that. I ended up having to plumb my Dynon heated pitot. That was a nuisance.

Maybe the 5500 works different, The 15.1 install manual says this:

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AOA

Mac,

The 5500 with an Adhars only requires one AOA input so the two wing holes that the older Pro & Sport models used won’t work. I thought about just using one of these older stand alone units but a lot more work installing the wing ports, running the plumbing, wiring and mounting for the cpu and glareshield display, etc. With the AOA input built into the Adhars all I need is to plumb a single AOA source and I’m done. With the latest software update the 5500 EFIS now allows selection of several options for AOA audio. The Adhars is already electrically connected to the EFIS and everything is working.

The one thing Dynon should do is make a small glareshield repeater display similar to the AOA Pro or the Garmin GI-260. These are both excellent displays that are in the field of view for landing without staring inside at an EFIS.

I am going to add a single AOA source, just trying to find some definitive guidance on the best place to install. Thanks to Paul in Australia I think I may have found the location. This would be the simplest solution but just wish the Dynon folks would develop a glareshield display I could add on in the future.
 
Ah…thanks for the explanation, that makes perfect sense. I originally had the two-AoA wing ports, which provided AoA though the built-in Crossbow ADAHRS that was part of the 4500 I had when I bought the airplane. That ADAHRS in that EFIS died and replacing the whole EFIS with new SV ADAHRS and SV network made by far the most economic sense. When Tricia did tell me that my existing AoA ports wouldn’t work, she knew that the previous owner had installed a Dynon heated pitot so I’m sure she thought that that made more sense than drilling a new in-wing port. It probably did, but unfortunately the A&P that installed the Dynon heated pitot didn’t run the tubing for AoA while he was there. I’m sure I have some residual PTSD from that plumbing exercise.

Tricia did tell me that Dynon or AFS (can’t remember) offered a stand-alone AoA (glare shield mount) that could use my dual AoA ports but at that time, that option didn’t make sense to me since I already had AoA in the 5400 and already had the right pitot. That was about 18 months ago. Since then, I thought I read that they had stopped selling their glareshield AoA system.

Off-topic…..the 5400 that I have is the same as your 5500, but they put the screen and guts of the 5500 into the 4500 chassis. Therefore I didn’t have to re-cut the panel, which I appreciated. A lot of the wiring and settings were the same, but there were a few frustrating gotchas that weren’t documented. Generally speaking Rob and Jonathon were generously available to help however.

ETA: I bought this yellow RV-9A about 2.5 years ago from a guy in St. Louis at KALN
 
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