Sierra Del Barón Rojo

Saturday and Sunday saw foul weather so I couldn't make the return trip to Jindabyne.




I have been annoyed sometime by my PDA mounting bracket which is a commercial unit that I cable-tied to the control column. It was always getting in the way of my map board and I had to place the map board between the seats when I want to manouvre because the PDA power-lead would catch on the board. Something had to be done, and it was the last straw when I wiped out the PDA bracket when exiting the plane.

So Saturday afternoon I made a paper template and took it home that night and thought about various mounting arrangements. I wanted a mount that sat higher on the control column and didn't foul with anything in the cockpit whilst presenting the PDA in my face so to speak and without obscuring the instruments.

That afternoon I hunted around my garage and found some suitable building material, a small plastic chopping board that we used to take camping. I used the paper template and my bench saw and cut out the following: a base plate with a split to accept the control-column, and suitably sloping plastic sections to hold the PDA bracket at an angle while the control-column mounting plate fitted vertically to the back of the control wheel. Yes everything but the PDA bracket are to the back of the control-wheel where it can't catch anything.

The plastic strips were glued with 5 minute araldite and screwed with self-taping screws after drilling a suitable clearance hole through both peices. The sloping strips were also glued and screwed to the commercial PDA bracket so nothing would go astray in the cockpit. The flat mounting plate has 4 holes drilled in it, and with the two stop sections that abutted the bottom of the control-wheel, the unit was mounted with the assistance of foam rubber and cables ties to the back of the control wheel, with the PDA bracket overhanging and forming the section that abuts against the top of the control wheel and held there by gravity and the cable ties.

The PDA now sits high on the column, and when I move my seat forward I can see the fuel gauges and the ameter and the clock and of course all the flight instruments are clearly visible and the power cord on the PDA falls in the centre of the control wheel well out of the way of my map and knee boards, should I choose to use them.



Part 1 is the backing plate, part 2 the sloping strips that abutt against the PDA bracket, part 3 is a strut to strengthen the sloping strips and part 4 are the tabs that prevent the backing plate from yawing on the control wheel because these tabs are abutt against the bottom on each side of the centre of the control wheel.
Four holes, for the cable ties, are marked as circles with crosses.