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F.8L Falco Construction Manual
14–5
Revision 4, March 1, 2002
may be run to a remote receiver on the aft face of frame No. 6. This installation will provide the
extra cable needed.
ADF Antenna Installation
No special antenna is offered by Radio Systems Technology since most new radios are supplied
with a combined sense-loop antenna. This antenna should be installed inside the top of the
fuselage around station No. 9. Because of the proximity of the antenna to frame No. 8, it may not
be necessary to have cable connectors if the cable can be easily detached from the antenna, or if
the antenna can be easily detached from the airframe.
Special Considerations in Wiring
Any of the antenna coaxial cables may be run beside any other antenna coaxial cables. Care must
be exercised when installing some of the antenna cables near strobe light wires. Strobes are
operated by high voltage, and these high voltage wires lead from the strobe power supply to the
strobe light. It is permissible to run these high voltage wires with the cables for the DME and
transponder antennas, but the VHF navigation and communications antenna cables should be
spaced about 6” from the high voltage wires to eliminate the noise that will otherwise be created.
The ADF antenna cable is ten times more sensitive to the strobe light wiring and should be kept
as far away from it as possible. The strobe light wiring for the tail should be run down the upper
left side longeron—on the opposite side of the fuselage from the ADF cable.
General Comments
Wood aircraft are customarily covered with a metalized paint over the fabric. This “silver” coat
has no effect on the operation of the antennas, since the metal parts in the paint are in suspension
and do not touch each other. This does not apply to metallic enamel final coatings, however. No
tests have been done for such paints, and one Falco was painted with metallic Imron enamel, and
the internal antennas (not RST design) did not work. While it may be that the failure of the
antennas was a result of their design, it does cast doubts on the success of using internal antennas
under metallic enamels. We suggest that metallic enamels
not
be used.
These assembly instructions were written without the actual installation of the antennas in a
Falco. Accordingly, we suspect that there are some ways of installing the antennas which are
easier than others, and that there are a number of better ways of installing the antennas which
have not occurred to us. The placement of the antennas within the aircraft should not be
changed, but we are free to admit that we do not have all of the answers about what is the best
way of installing the antennas, fitting them to the structure and how this installation best meshes
with the assembly of the aircraft. Please let us have your ideas if you come across some better way
of doing things.
For additional information on these types of antenna system:
1. “The Plastic Plane $5 Antenna System”,
Sport Aviation
, Jim Weir, May 1979.
2. “Antennalets”,
Sport Aviation
, Jim Weir, January 1981.
3. “Economy Antennas”,
Sport Aviation
, Jim Weir, October 1976.
Loran Antenna Installation
At this time all of the details of the installation of a Loran antenna have not been worked out for
the Falco. Radio Systems Technology has worked on the design of internal antennas for Loran
navigation systems. For additional information, see “Loran Antennas for Plastic Airplanes”,
Sport
Aviation
, Jim Weir, March 1984. The notes which follow are taken from that article and from
discussions with Jim Weir on the specific Falco installation. This installation is not finalized yet
and is subject to change.
Summary of Contents for F.8L Falco
Page 1: ...F 8L Falco Construction Manual...
Page 7: ...l F 8L Falco Construction Manual Revision 4 March 1 2002...
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