AeroElectric Occasional

Richter: "I've seen so much truly atrocious work, much of it per Bob's book"

To: Greg@bluemountainavionics.com
Mailed: 9/27/04 at 10:00 am

Greg,

I've published an update to the discussions prompted by your
booklet, "Aircraft Wiring for Smart People" at:

http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles/richter/richter.html

I'd be pleased to engage you in an open, constructive dialog
so that any interested observer will have a crack at
understanding what we are about.

Regards,

           Bob . . .

           -----------------------------------------
           ( Experience and common sense cannot be )
           ( replaced with policy and procedures.  )
           (                  R. L. Nuckolls III   )
           -----------------------------------------
		  
Reply received 9-28-4
To: "Robert L. Nuckolls, III" 
Subject: Re: Wiring for Smart People 

Sure thing, Bob.  Always open to talking shop.  What I want to avoid is a flame
war over who invented electricity.

I don't like flame wars either. I don't participate in them.

The way you styled my page (which is a bit much, frankly) on your site as "Breaking
News" shows that you are making a far bigger deal over my little book of notes
than I am.  It's a simple guide to answer questions I get asked a lot by my customers.
I put it together for a friend who asked for some guidance on tools and techniques,
and it grew into a bigger book of notes as time went on. It's not a replacement
for your book, web site and lecture tour, so relax.

Thank you for your concerns but I'm not the least bit tense . . . Now,
I WAS a bit excited. If I had stood in front of my contemporaries at RAC
and made statements like some of yours, I'd be fielding cabbages and
tomatoes from all over the room. A teacher's first tool is precise use
of words. I WAS whacking away with enthusiasm but not out of any sense of
self defense or ill will. I was just holding you to the same standards
I would expect of any engineer whether they work for a big aerospace company
or simply attempting to educate neophyte airplane builders.

You are trying to develop a set of solutions for the community.  My booklet is on
my web site and is geared to help my customers, who have very similar electrical
requirements.  It's a narrow population segment and the booklet is geared (wired?)
to them.  It is a draft, has some unfinished sections and some things in it that
are confusing or not exactly as they should be just yet.  I really didn't expect
or want a full-on review, page by page.  A private email comment would have been
more appropriate, and I have taken some of your suggestions.

I had three or four e-mails from folks who were aware of your posting and
and already picked up on major issues of both technology and fact. Your target
market may indeed be limited to your customers but that's not at all clear
in the text. There are broad statements about system voltage selection, supported
by energy discussions and weights that simply didn't compute. You were using
the term "energy" to describe what now appears to be a discussion on effects
of internal impedance of batteries during starter inrush currents.	 
If you had sent me a document for review, then things would have undoubtedly
spun up in a different manner. But you published it I was receiving questions
from the field concerning variability of facts, suppositions, etc.

Thanks for the comments, by the way, on some of the things that were unclear,
in error or needed revision.  It's a draft, and its getting better with each
review; yours and others.  Another few rounds it'll be a nice little booklet.

Great. Please consider any future comments as being crafted with
that spirit and intent.

Also -- the "Bare Knuckles" comment isn't a jab at you.

I didn't even consider it until one of my readers wondered out loud . . . it
was an interesting question.
   
We've never met, and I don't know you well enough to take a cheap shot at you.
This is a reference to a simple, "gloves off" approach to doing a job.  It's a
common expression in my shop, but as I noted, we don't know each other and you've
never been out here. Lighten up, Bob.  The world isn't out to get you and neither
am I.

If anybody perceives some value in an effort to "get me" with
any sort of activity, I hope they enjoy their illusion. Honorable
folks cannot be "got" and it is my intention to conduct myself honorably.
If someone wants to attack ideas I've embraced, that's fine too. Flimsy,
unsupported ideas are indefensible and need to fall. Good ideas will
stand on their own and don't require a defense by me or anyone else, only
lucid explanation. I readily confess to being enthusiastic about my profession
but if anybody reads a degree of tension, jealousy, ill will or paranoia into
my words, they're simply mistaken or wishfully thinking.

Now:

I have no issue with how you propose to wire and connect things and I am not
attacking your text, your Website or you personally.

Okay.
		  
I am observing that your approach requires more learning and studying than most
builders are willing to do and not all of them get good results.

I'd really like to understand this statement. How do you perceive "my
approach"? The first 16 chapters of the 'Connection have to do with hardware.
These discussions are common to any DC power system in any vehicle. 
		 
What is the goal of your publishing effort? Are you suggesting that bypassing
the first 16 chapters is a useful mission? For the sake of discussion, I'll assume
that's true. This condition in fact is how most pilots understand and operate their
cookie-cutter spam-cans. EVERYTHING used in the airplane is holy-watered
and few pilots perceive value in understanding anything about it . . . and
most don't understand it.
		 
The last two chapters deal with suggestions for architecture described
in terms of engine options, perceived mission, and builder choices
based on knowledge and budget. The vast majority of OBAM aircraft could
be wired per figure Z-11 which is only very slightly different than
the current fleet of spam cans. There are no more switches and no more
busses than found on a 1968 C-172 or 2004 Bonanza. Except for the
dual feed-path e-bus concept, Z-11 is no different than the system suggested
in Van's kits or Tony Bengelis' books.
		 
What follows after Z-11 are step ups from "stone simple" that address opportunities
that only OBAM aircraft owners are allowed to consider. Each has features
that address specific goals and concerns. I have to presume that if
someone doesn't understand the "step up" systems, he will opt for the
"stone simple" route with features that eliminates potential for a lot
of dark-n-stormy-night-stories. 

The really dangerous, scary installations I've seen that are "per AeroElectric" would
not make muster with you either, I'd hope.  From what I see, some builders just
don't get what you were trying to say and subsequently made a hash of it. That doesn't
make your book wrong.

Can you give me one suggestion from the 'Connection that a builder "hashed"?
I'm having trouble visualizing what words or illustrations in the book drove
a poor decision on the part of a builder. If your book of 40+ pages is for smart
people then my book of 270+ pages is for dumb people. If I fell short of the goals
for raising some individual's level of understanding to the degree necessary to
"pass muster", I'd sure like to understand how it happened so I can fix it. When
the Seawind builder showed up, what was the first thing you saw that needed fixed
and what did he read in the 'Connection that drove the situation?"
	 
Suppose the Seawind builder had come in the door with a system per Tony
B's book?  Would the system have been in any better shape? If the system was
still hosed, would you have been equally inclined to state, "I've see so much
atrocious work, most of it per Firewall Forward? There are 100 times more airplanes
out there wired per Firewall Forward than per the 'Connection.  Is it your
perception that Tony's work produces more consistently successful results then
there has to be a profound difference in teaching approaches for Tony's work
versus my work. Is Tony's work also too complicated and you're proposing an
approach that is simpler still? I'm really trying to understand.
	 
It may make it overly complex in some cases, but that's my opinion and is noted
as such.

Complex in what ways? If you were going to red-line any page of
the 'Connection what would you mark for deletion or modification?
What page depicts a concept that could be simpler? Do you have a
suggestion for a new Z-figure that illustrates your proposal?

My little booklet isn't a substitute for the many good wiring books out there, yours
among them.  It describes a simplified approach suitable for a hobbyist who doesn't
want to engineer a cut-and-dried task like installing a radio, or an EFIS. In the
world of small, homebuilt, single-engine airplanes there's enough commonality to do
things in a much, much simpler manner than is now common.  

I've read your publication many times and forgive me . . . I'm trying
to visualize what you're suggesting. Maybe I'm too educated. If you
handed me a bag full of parts and wire, a box full of tools, and a copy
of the booklet, I cannot visualize how the system you are proposing
describe comes into being. I tried to "reverse engineer" the schematic
for the board and couldn't perceive the big picture. If somebody wanted to
hire me to install a system per "Wiring for Smart People", I could not quote
the task.

You speak of what's "common" . . . as being more complex than what your
book suggests. I can tell you that 90% of the OBAM aircraft are wired
very much like Tony B's work and Van's wiring which is just like a current
production C-172 and can't be simpler.

You an I are offering some quantum jumps in capability. Glass cockpits
are anything BUT common in light aircraft. Similarly, it will be a BIG milestone
in GA when the numbers of airplanes with two alternators exceeds 10% of
the whole fleet. The 'Connection offers a variety of choices ranging from
systems only slightly different that a current production spam can up to
a fully redundant, dual electrical system.
	    
The vast bulk of what we do is very cut and dried.  Why spec out, in detail, things
like coax when a single part number will work admirably for everything in a homebuilt?
I've seen quite a few planes with three (3) kinds of coaxial cable, for example,
since the builder thought that's what he had to do.

So there were 3-kinds of coax. Was each one adequate to the task?
I discuss various kinds of coax in the 'Connection but at
no place do I recall making a recommendation for any single style
of coax much less three different kinds applied to different radios.

If  you had a builder come in the door with three different coaxes when
one coax would do, it was because he followed three different recommendations
in three different installation manuals for his radios . . . not because
of anything he read in the 'Connection.

Nice tag at the bottom of your email, BTW.  It's essentially what I'm suggesting -- 
experience and common sense dictate that out of 100 airplanes I see in my work, 
90 of them could have been wired the same way.  Why are we reinventing the wheel
with every new ship, and even worse making the non-electronically inclined builder
fight his way up the learning curve?

Of all the OBAM aircraft being built, 90% of them ARE indeed wired the same
way. The electrical systems are clones of a Cherokee or Skyhawk. I
I don't expect more than a tiny percentage of all OBAM aircraft builders
to rely on the AeroElectric Connection for assistance with their projects. Further,
most of those will choose Z-11 which is very nearly a clone of the Cherokee/Skyhawk
architecture.
	  
It's also unrealistic to expect more than a small percentage of total
new OBAM aircraft to carry a BMA EFIS system or any other glass cockpit.
We're both seeking the EXCEPTIONAL customer. But here's where we
diverge. You seem to believe that the technically inept or disinterested
builder is a member of your consumer demographic and would benefit from
a cookie-cutter approach to system configuration. Conversely I am quite
certain that most OBAM aircraft builders, ESPECIALLY the disinterested
and inept are NOT part of my consumer demographic. I've had e-mails and
phone calls from folks who I wished had NOT purchased the 'Connection.
They clearly had no business building an airplane. I generally hear
from them only a few times. I hope that's because they took up rock collecting
and not because they didn't survive first flight.

The anecdotes you've cited as argument for a "bare bones" document are
unconvincing. If some guy walks up to you lamenting a failed attempt
at brain surgery and says he did relied on Dr. Excellent's book, is there
a logical basis to believe the outcome would have been satisfactory
if he had relied on Dr. Easy's book instead? It seems to me that a sure
formula for failure is to ignore or discount the fundamentals irrespective
of who writes the book. Ultimate responsibility for this outcome rests with
the builder alone. The only time an author gets to take on any blame is when they
publish bad stuff. It's the duty of folks who know better to advise against
bad work before it's published or to shine spotlights of warning on bad work
after it's published.
  
My thesis is not everyone wants to, or needs to spent the time reinventing
the same circuit diagram.  You and I are essentially pushing the same program -- I
am asking for simplification where it can had.  If you want to kick around
specifics, I'm open to that.

Great. I'll let you lead. Take any page or concept described in the
'Connection and suggest how it can be simplified. I'd be pleased to include
your suggestion in Rev 11.

Regards,


           Bob . . .

           -----------------------------------------
           ( Experience and common sense cannot be )
           ( replaced with policy and procedures.  )
           (                  R. L. Nuckolls III   )
           -----------------------------------------