I fabricated the headset jack brackets from some 0.040″ bent sheet. These were cut from the original engine control bracket that Van’s includes in the kit. I drilled the holes 1″ apart and drill three staggered holes to mount the brackets to the bulkheads. Here’s the copilot’s bracket.
And here’s the pilot’s bracket. These are mounted high enough that they’ll never accidentally be kicked or bumped, but low enough that you can still lean over just a bit to see when plugging in the headset.
I then wired up the pilot’s jacks. The mic jack is on the top and includes two extra wires that are routed to the pilot’s push-to-talk button. I then routed those two wires back to the pilot’s stick.
There is just over 1/4″ of clearance between the plugs and the face of the bulkhead. The interior side panels will mount to this face and are approximately 1/8″ thick. This will keep the plugs fairly tight against the side panels without causing them to rub against it.
Here’s how I ended up deciding to secure the stick wiring. The bundle exits the bottom of the stick between the bearings and then wraps around the end and back up the side where it is anchored with a couple of zip ties. It then curves over and is anchored to the adjacent rib with an adel clamp.
Because the bundle curves away from the stick pretty much right at the pivot point, the length hardly changes as the stick is moved. The position with the least slack is with the stick in the aft left position.
Moving the stick to the fore right position creates the most slack in the bundle. I’m really happy with this arrangement as the bundle has very little flex and has no chance of interfering with the control stick or aileron trim.
