Giddday,
I have a little a/c that has 2 contoured venturi tubes either side of the
cockpit for vacuum. I would believe that it would be easy to plumb a
conventional vacuum supplied instrument cluster from a venturi that you
select manually, into the breeze or otherwise. Why you wouldn't always have
it out there is because of drag, although mine are contoured with
foam/composite such that they look like a couple of little rocket packs. If
I ultimately use a different undercarriage setup, well to have the venturi
in a belly position would be ideal, retracting up into the tunnel. The
other location for any configuration is forward of your left knee in close
proximity to the cockpit air supply. The access hole would be an elongated
rectangle laying horizontally, hinged on the horizontal bottom edge. You
either have nothing deployed, and a flush skin panel, or you rotate it
outboard from its internal storage. If you were really smart you could
probably make this opening multi functional such that it was a normal
cockpit air supply, or a venturi egress point. In marginal conditions where
speed is no longer the priority, you just rotate the fitting out into the
breeze and power up with simple vacuum your conventional, and cheap, flight
instruments.
Reg
Tony Renshaw
Sydney Australia
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