Look what I found in Oshkosh yesterday.....

Yeah, it was right in front of thisRumors of their death were (somewhat) exaggerated.

Yeah, it was right in front of thisRumors of their death were (somewhat) exaggerated.

I'll admit I was surprised to see their presence.

Can you expand a bit on the current status and near term future of the company?

Still in a holding pattern. The owner, Bob Wolstenholme, has been looking for additional funding since he shut down operations in October of 2017. He brought in a new president, Mark Jean, last August, a month before the company was scheduled to be wound up. Ever since, Mark's been busy negotiating with potential investors and circulating term sheets with NDAs so nobody involved in the negotiations can talk about them. His periodic public comments cycle between optimism, that a deal is just days or weeks away, and lashing out at tortious interference, either by people who'd rather see the company in bankruptcy than see money go to Bob, or by people close to Bob who tell him he should hold out for more. Right now he's in the optimistic phase of the cycle, citing "excellent progress over the last four weeks" so who knows.

Bob's family owns the building so they won't get evicted. The company owes money to suppliers all over but apparently not enough to any one creditor to be worth a lawsuit. The only filed suit I know of, from an unhappy customer, is a long way from court yet, so there's no obvious time limit on Bob's holding out for the deal he wants.

The plane is too good to die. Mark instituted monthly on-line owners meetings and has shown a new openness to suggestions for improvement, from fabrication changes to reduce build time to changes in systems to improve safety, maintenance and life-cycle cost. Whether re-capitalized or post-bankruptcy, production will ultimately resume and when it does the plane will be better than ever.

Progress vlog. Installing antennas. The usual design has 8 antennas in the wind, we got it down to 3.Two GPS antennas and one ELT hide under the fiberglass fin cap where they can still see the sky.The ADS-B/transponder is on the bellythat's also where the two Comm antennas will go.

Don’t think the GPS antennas meet the “ground plane” of 7.5” radius around the perimeter of the antenna!

If you have issues.

Murray

Not sure what type of GPS you're installing. The Garmin GTN 6xx/7xx install manual calls out a 7.5" diameter ground plane.

However, I have a GTN625 with no ground plane. Performs fine.

One of my pet peeves with most experimentals is their improperly installed antennae. I understand the reasoning for it, which is usually an emphasis on looks, speed, and VFR operations at the expense of IFR operations.

I replaced my flying vee antenna with a GPS/COM antenna made by Comant. It works great and looks like a typical blade antenna.

The antennas do cause drag so I understand the desire to minimize that drag.

Jim

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. However, mine is not the first to be done this way. This is a standard place for GPS antenna in the Evo, specified in the build manual, the avionics tech says he's never gotten any complaints and always measured a good signal with it, and Evos fly a lot of IFR.

Air conditioning condenser installation. I'd read complaints from Evo owners about the A/C fan, that it failed a lot because it was really a computer cooling fan, not designed for either the cold or thin air of FL 280. When I first saw this thing I wondered WTH kind of monster gaming computer it came out of! The shop guys laughed and said no, they just pitch the fan that comes with the kit, this is a real, designed for the job A/C fan.

Some of the gaming rigs have some pretty large case fans that can support thousands of hours cooling the gaming rig of a 30-something kid in their parents' basement. They run happily on on 12v and pull around .15-.20 Amps. Over the years I have seen some just die but, fortunately, have not caught fire or shorted out. The one in my old flight sim rig has about 12,000 hours on it but it has never been above 533 feet.

Would I want a computer fan or two in my aircraft - probably not unless they were part of a removable cooler. However, it would be interesting to see what they are putting in the kit as the cheap option and who makes it.

Every choice has consequences. Looking back into the tail. That big A/C fan motor has big magnets, too close to the stock magnetometer mount you can see on the left in this picture. Or maybe the G3X Touch magnetometers are extra sensitive. Either way, they had to be moved farther away.

One thing leads to another. We changed the landing gear system, so all those hydraulic lines had to be re-done, and as long as we were doing that (famous last words!) we went ahead and re-routed fuel and brake lines too. Landing gear hydraulic lines, fuel lines, brake lines -- I remember doing these early on, now they're all replaced. I think we redid every hardline in the fuselage.Obviously poor access, and the standard build has the plumbing running above the electrical bundles. Not optimal, both because leaks would go on the wires and because pushing plumbing out of the way to get at wires is a lot harder than the reverse.Now the lines drop down and run along the floor, leaving room for electrical bundles above.