I have 3 double USB ports for this plane. Here I’m documenting the fitting of two of them, oh and a couple of other small jobs along the way.

I am getting to those now or never jobs. As I was working on this arm rest it was time to seal off the edges. Where the Klixon fuses will go I’d spent hours on preserving the foam in between the fuses. Now I cut it all out to make one tidy uniform slot. This is much better.

I did careful flox corners with a tiny dental bit and then added a two ply layup to the exposed edges.

Here we are all cleaned up. MUCH better.

This is where I’ve added a couple of click bonds to hold that ferry pump relay. I found this spot over the main fuel pumps. In fact I have the relay reversed now so the connections are easier to get to.

Space is precious! Of course the cover that goes over this then had to be thinned out slightly and a ply of BID added to that. These are the things that gobble up time.

I spent a lot of time sitting in the plane and thinking about where these USB ports are going to go. This one is inside the pilot seat back. The outlets will be usable by a passenger but it’s mainly power in case I put a camera on my headrest. This is looking likely.

This is the back of the pilot seat and I have the screw on cover to nicely secure the USB.

The second USB is going in the right side pilot arm rest. Wow was this a lot of work, and a lot of thinking. In this shot you can see the cutout square. That was after I removed the foam at the end of the armrest and did a 4 ply BID layup. That is why you can see a green colour in that area.

You can see the beginnings of the USB fitting as well. My idea is to glue aluminium to the back of the USB but clear of the screw holes.

With a tongue of metal it can then mate to a second piece that is epoxied in place to the side wall. Nut plates will facilitate fixing and removal. This is the second piece before gluing it on.

The previous piece needed a bit out of it for things to fit. I can see now that I am really prototyping. In a different world, the fuse holders arm rest holder and USB holder would all be the one piece of metal. You can see I’ve had to dig into the seat back a little to fit the USB brick. I really wanted it deep in that corner so it was well under my elbow.

Does it all make sense now?

Finally all we see in the cockpit armrest is the USB port entry. I like it. Note that I’ve also added a bit of micro to the ends of the armrest for a better fit. Will this ever end?