All about cabling

Knowing how important is to properly set up the aircraft cabling, We recruited the help of our good friend Gamal Casas to help out in the process. Here in Peru, Gamal is sort of a legend among ultralight builders as he has assembled most of the flying ultralights in the region.

I've personally flew the first flight of the last Challenger ultralight he assembled, it flew hands off since the first run.

First we put together the GOAT and checked for symmetry between the wings and the fuselage.  To do this, we first installed the flaps and the ailerons with a few soft rivets to keep them in place. (We will remove those to fabric afterwards)

With that done, we measured and cut the structural cables to size, before assembling them with it's sleeves and nicos. Originally, the kit came with out any shackles. We decided to add them at on the main wings to make it easier to assemble and dis-assemble the kit for transport.  (Otherwise, it would have required the removal of bolts on the tail and nose every time)

Getting cables right is a slow and detailed process, always stopping to double check the symmetry of the structure and making sure the previous cable did not throw the alignment off.

We started with the tail section, and quickly found that  bottom cable connecting attachment was missing. I emailed Jon in NY who quickly replied with pictures of the prototype. With this Gamal was able to find a replacement from parts we had in the shop.

Tail bottom wires

Tail top wires

Wing to tail cables

Modified wing cable attachment point

The original cable attachment piece on the trailing edge of the main wing seemed to be a bit short in comparison to what we saw on the pictures, so we built a larger one to accommodate the for the flap angle.

Rear cables view

Rear cable split view

On the wing front cable attachments we added shackles for quick dis-assembly

Wing to nose cable

New rear cable attachment point with shackle for easy dis-assembly

Completed the structural cabling, we started the controls cables wiring with the pedals and rudder controls.

For this process we clamped the ailerons and tail surfaces in their middle position, then centered the pedals and the flight stick before clamping them too.

Once everything was in place, we cut and assembled the wires making sure that the control surfaces had proper travel 

Rudder controls view 2

Rudder controls

Pedals

Rudder pedals

Rudder pedals (springs located temporarily)

We paid particular attention to the ruder controls, as the ruder surface is quite large and did not wanted to allow over controlling of it.

Finally we routed the cables through the wing ribs by carefully wrapping the tense control cable with a piece of coarse sand paper (coarse side facing out of course) and sliding back and front till the tension disappeared.

Again, we put shackles on the cables so we could quickly dis-assemble the wings when needed. 

Control stick cabling

Cable routing through the ribs

Some dude posing as a pilot :)