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Functional cockpit instuments
Back when the 40% Ka-3 build was posted on this site the end plan was to have functional cockpit instrumentation. To that end steps were taken to make the airspeed gage needle move based on incoming air from the opening in the nose, but only works now in a high speed tow or in a dive. The vario needle will move up or down depending whether you are banking left or right. Well things have change this past week with 3D printed instrument housings and functional onboard electronics. The Jette radio system that is in use always had more bells and whistles than expected. It was time to put them to use by linking the onboard vario output with a servo to drive the variometer needle. This was finally accomplished, but a bit crude as yet. It will be finely tweaked later. Further sensor to servo functions will allow airspeed and altimeter reading (not necessarily scale) within the cockpit. You say to what end, well having an onboard cockpit video with movable cockpit features makes it just that more enjoyable to watch.
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While at the Agassiz B.C. aerotow a few years back Doug Wallace and I had an interesting conversation about functional instrumentation. Doug had developed a system to operate the instruments on his HP-18 sailplane so work started on 40% instrument cans. Time has passed but not the concept so with the electronic wizardry of Doug Wallace to assemble the electronic package and George R for 3D printing the instrument cans the 40% instruments are now ready for the upgrade. The only problem now is there is a 1/3 scale SGS 1-26 wing in the building state on the workbench so the upgrade will have to wait a bit more.
https://youtu.be/7_5_L_uWS2Y
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