Plane Mounting Instructions

This should be done with at least two people because the battery box is very heavy

The box doesn't sit on the floor, but is secured to the passenger seat rails with clamp plates.

All 4 of the clamps need to be removed before you lift the pod into the plane. The top of the rails is too wide to fit in the hole between the box stands and the clamps even when the bolts are loose.

Carefully lift and place the pod in the plane. We found it wasn't too difficult to do it with each person holding a handle on both sides (as opposed to having one person hold the handles on one side, and the other person hold the handles on the other side).

The most difficult task is to get the box into the plane, but another difficult task is to seat it correctly on the rails. The way the box is built, the stands have to slide onto the rails from the pilot side. We accomplished this by placing the box closer to the pilot seat, so that the box stands were on the “inside” side of the rails (the side that faces the pilot seat). Then we carefully maneuvered the pod onto the rails by lifting and moving it a little bit towards the passenger door.

Now you should carefully put the rail clamps on and tighten them slightly with the bolts, but don't tighten them all the way because you might need to slide the pod up or down the rails to make sure the instrument pod arms fit through the door.

The next task is mounting the instrument box. The following image shows how the supporter arms should be attached to the box.

There are two ways to mount the instrument pod: 1. attach the arms to the instrument box first and then attach the instrument box with the arms to the battery box or 2. attach the arms first to the battery box and then attach the instrument box to the arms. We found out that the first way is the easiest.

It is important to remember that the door has to go on the plane first, before you even attach the instrument box. The box turns out to be so close to the door, that there's no way to mount the door when the instrument pod is already attached.

So attach the arms to the instrument pod but make sure you do it correctly - the picture below shows incorrect placement of the box. The cable notches have to face the door because cables will run through those notches to the computer inside the plane.

For this step you are better off with two people, although it's possible to position the instrument pod on top of a chair that's just the right height. Let one person carefully insert the instrument pod arms into the hole in the door with the second person guiding the arms. Then, while the first person holds the instrument pod outside the plane, the first person tightens the bolts that secure the arms to the battery box (there are 6 total, but we could only find 4 nuts to fit the bolts). This is the step where you might need to slide the battery box up or down the rails in order for it to match the hole in the door.

Now tighten some of the clamps that hold the battery box to the rails.

There are two things we discovered. When the instrumend pod bars are attached to the battery box, one of them interferes with the charger plug. We were able to solve this by pulling the rubber grip back a little.

The second thing is that as can be seen in the pictures above, the instrument box is so close to the door, it actually exerts pressure on it. That may or may not be a good thing - the damps won't be able to do anything about the vibration transferred through the door. On the other hand, the instrument box helps to secure the door in place (in addition to the big aluminum bar). We haven't been able to come up with any (good)alternative ideas for how to secure the door besides using the bar.