Control Sticks

My original plans with the control sticks was to use Infinity Aerospace stick grips. Unfortunately, no amount of trimming of the stick base was enough to create clearance from the throttle and mixture controls with these stick grips. If I had installed a throttle quadrant instead of the standard vernier controls, they would have worked out.

So I went with plan B and bought the standard Vans stick grips. These provide *just* enough clearance from the throttle and mixture controls, and they clear the bottom of the panel. There is still interference if the cabin heat vent is on and the stick is in the full forward and left/right positions, but there really isn’t anything I can do to avoid that.

The sticks just needed to have their base holes drilled, and the wire harness connectors replaced with my setup, and they were ready to install.

Today I installed new Deutch connectors on the control stick wiring. This is my third attempt to wire the sticks up, the previous two were either too bulky, or too insecure. the deutch connectors have a nice backshell that holds d-sub pins and keeps the pins in perfect alignment. The backshells have a sturdy latch, and can be fairly easily mounted.

I cut off the molex bracket from the control stick bases. This allowed the new connectors to sit close to the control stick, minimizing the potential interference. I installed the deutch d-sub pins, and then mounted the connectors.

I installed the passenger side to check clearances, and then replicated for the pilot side. I won’t install the pilot side sticker just yet as I’m going to be working under the panel next.

The last step was to glue the mount onto the stick base with some epoxy glue. I roughed up the mount’s surface, and the powder coating on the stick base before glueing the mount’s surface on.