There's a 170 in my hangar!

[Aeroplane]

On March 14th my wife and I became the proud owners of a 1949 170A. Just got my tail wheel endorsement and BFR out of the way Monday and was finally deemed trustworthy to fly my own airplane! What a sweet old plane, I love this thing! I hadn't flown in four years and didn't realize just how much I missed it. This is our sixth and probably last plane. I just don't see how you could do better, this one's a keeper! Found out a couple of hours ago that the panel lights, most of them anyway, don't work. The ones that do are so dim you'd need to strike a match to tell if they're on so the panel is pretty much dark. Being determined to fly I got out my trusty headband headlight and away we went! Anybody have any recommendations on getting instruments re-furbed? They're pretty faded an I'd like to get the panel back un shape.
Louie Hanna

[T. C. Downey]

Way to go Louie, did you know there is a reostat under the panel with a big knob that controls the lighting ? (little right of center under the panel)

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Congratulations. Welcome to life with a 170.

Assuming a stock panel and stock lights, here is a picture of what you will find installed in the panel.

InstrumentPanelLampSockets.jpg (108.32 KiB) Viewed 4974 times

The sockets in the picture where bought about 5 years ago from Neward Electonics and had an SKU of 81N2568. They were not available last I looked. They are identical except these these have a ground lug and the original did not.

And the ground is the key. These socket assemblies are kept in place by spring pressure. The ground to the socket relies on good contact between the clip and the sub instrument panel. And then of course it relies on the sub panel being grounded. You will find the ground is bad to various degrees to each socket which is why some won't light and others are not as bright as the rest.

A few years ago I removed my panel and ran a ground wire to each and every socket, soldering it to the outside of the light socket. Now the only thing that can go wrong is the bulb burns out or the socket and bulb get corroded.

When all the lights work as best they can the lighting would probably be considered marginal. Many 170s have had additional torpedo type spot lights installed. These fixtures became standard in later models.

The head lamp your using is an excellent option meeting the KISS principle.

[Aeroplane]

Thanks for the input guys! I forgot to look for the rheostat tonight but I've got a feeling this isn't that simple. Right on Bruce, I recall cars of about the same vintage being plagued with electrical problems which were attributable mostly to poor grounding. At least we don't have Lucas electrics so there is hope! I enjoy flying at night so this is something we'll deal with soon. Don't they make dimmable LEDs now? That would be the hot set up if you could adapt some of them for panel lighting. I flew up to visit a friend late this afternoon at an airport about twenty five miles from my home base and ended up staying way longer than I planned. Forgot the headlight and left it back at the hangar. I was going to use the flashlight in my phone for panel lighting to get home but I discovered the dome light, also very dim, provides just about the right amount of light. When I got back to my home airport the wind had swung around to the south giving me a 60* crosswind from the right at twelve gusting to eighteen. I figured I'd try the old "sneak up on the ground" approach and give it a try. Put the right wheel down first with a little left rudder and we were down. The ground didn't even see us coming! Not bad considering I couldn't even spell taildragger a month ago... A lot of luck involved there.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

That sneak up on the ground technique works well. Problem is many pilots, milk stool drivers included, are leery to try and just stay home. The effect is years down the road they still haven't perfected the technique and they simply don't fly if there is threat of wind.

We saw this in my modeling days. People would come to the field, set out all their equipment, then declare it to windy to fly. A favorite saying of one of the club instructors was 'Wind is a state of mind. If you don't mind it doesn't matter". The point being is many pilots don't fly to their capability not because they can't do something but they think they can't.


Good for you. You took the plane out, wasn't afraid to let it get late and dark, and then when faced with a cross wind just snuck up on the ground like a pro. Don't let it go to your head, the ground now knows it has to kick it up a notch and it will.

A dim dome light? Say it's not so. The dome light is grounded by two mounting screws that enter the cockpit through the top skin. Look up there you will see the screw head in a diagonal. No reason I can think of corrosion would cause a bad ground there. On the inside there are two spacers on the screws between the skin of the plane and the dome light. I cleaned the inside skin, and the done light and added small star lock washers at appropriate places to help get a bit of bite between all the connections. Dome light is now bright.

[Aeroplane]

Wasn't a great flying day today so I decided to have a look at the panel lighting issue. I discovered that somewhere along the line someone re-lamped the panel with 28 volt bulbs! I picked up some 12 volt ones at my local Advance "Aviation" Parts on my way home. I'll install them tomorrow, pretty sure it'll be problem solved. I'm thinking about changing over to LED's. From what I've read it should be as simple as changing out the bulbs and dimmer. Well, that's a good place to begin the experiment anyway. Anybody have any experience with this?