HOS – FAQs

If you can answer YES to *ANY* of the following, then YES, you will need a co-pilot Stick Grip ( also see Switching Command below ) :

* You will soon want to get just as proficient flying your own aircraft from the co-pilot seat as you are in the pilots seat like everyone else does, so you’ll certainly need matching Stick Grips ;
* Most instructors will not fly with you unless they have a matching co-pilot Stick Grip that controls every thing the pilots Stick Grip does so that they can take command from you if/when you screw up ;
* You will be checking out others in your aircraft so they can fly it and will want to give them command with a Stick Grip that has the same functions as the pilots ;
* You will be checking out others to help them get some stick time before they fly their aircraft, so you will want to give them command with a matching Stick Grip that has the same functions as the pilots ;
* You’ll be on a cross country and want your buddy to spell you, so you give them command while you eat your sandwich, or take a picture, or take a nap, or etc. ;
* If there is a problem with the pilots Stick Grip, you just jump over to the co-pilot seat, or reach over and use the switches on the co-pilot Stick Grip ;
* You’ll have a spare Stick Grip and/or parts for the pilots Stick Grip if you get in a pinch ;
* Young Eagles are aviation’s future, so they’ll want a Stick Grip with all the buttons, too.  You just don’t arm it using the Co-Pilot Isolate Switch so you can trip the ground wires to isolate the co-pilot Stick Grip.  See the ‘Pricing’ tab to buy the switch.

This may help / think of it this way — you’re taking your hotty trophy wife, or girl friend, out to a real swanky place.  She’s dressed to kill in a strapless evening gown with the girls popping out and with a full length slit up her right leg ( like Jessica Rabbit ), but she hasn’t shaved her right half of her body for over a year — do you still want to take her out for all to see ?!?  Sooo, do you want a Fighter Style Stick Grip for the co-pilot Stick Grip in your Pride and Joy that you’ve dreamed about building all you life, that you’ve spent years building and thou$and$, for all to see, or are you just going to throw a POS over / back there after reading the above ?!?
So, YES, ALL 2+ seat aircraft should have matching Stick Grips !  Also, the cockpit looks MUCH better to have a matching set of Stick Grips rather than a POS on the co-pilot side / back there, and is a marketing tool if you ever sell your aircraft ( your aircraft will look like a finished product ) !!!

And again, like it says at the beginning of my Stick Grip pages — You’ve spent years and thou$and$ on your dream machine !  Do you imagine flying your Pride and Joy with a Military Style Stick Grip ( from either seat ), or with other attempts at making a stick grip, such as using just a soft bike grip, ski pole handle or dowel rod that you stuck a couple of cheap switches in, which would be labor intensive to make and wire at best, that turn ON ( make contact ) if you bump them 1/200th of an inch ( our Stick Grip switches WILL NOT do this — ONLY ones that won’t! ), and that the only way to mount it is to glue it on ( then always wondering not if, but when, it will come off ) ?!?

Some builders ( who are also electronic whizzes ) have designed a little Black Box like the military and airlines have, that controls the functions and priorities of each Stick Grip ( which is VERY cool to have! ).  But / Or, for us Electronically Challenged ( like me ), a real simple way is to wire the ( #1 ) 4-Way Switch and the #2 Trigger Switch in parallel with each other in each Stick Grip, and gang all the grounds / commons of switches #3, #4, #5 and #6 together to a Lever Lock Toggle Switch mounted horizontally in the panel for the side-by-side aircraft, or in the left aft console across from the pilot’s left hip for the tandem builders, to isolate the pilot Stick Grip switches from the co-pilot’s switches.  If someone is messing with the 4-Way and / or Trigger Switch(es) who shouldn’t be, the side-by-side builders can just reach over and break their passengers arm ? .  BUT, the tandem builders can’t do this, so they will either wire all the grounds / commons of the 6 switches in the rear seat Stick Grip to the Lever Lock Toggle Switch, disarming all switches in the rear seat at once — or better yet, they will wire the 4-Way and Trigger Switch to a second Lever Lock Toggle Switch in the left console to disarm those 2 switches separately from switches #3, #4, #5 and #6 ( an RV-8 builder told me at Oshkosh 2000 that he calls the 2nd Lever Lock Toggle Switch that disables / disarms his 4-way and Trigger Switches in his co-pilots Stick Grip his ‘Grandson Switch’. )  [ At Sun ‘N Fun 2004, a husband and wife RV-8 flying team said they put both Lever Lock Toggle Switches by the pilots left hip in the console.  His wife said that way “when he has his heart attack in the front seat, I (she) can reach the 2 Lever Lock Toggle Switch by the pilot’s ( husband’s ) left hip from the back seat, and take back Stick Grip command, and land the plane.”  Good idea !  See the ‘Pricing’ tab to buy the switch.

Simply take your Stick Grip apart and use a ground down long 5/16″ x 1/4″ drive socket to remove the nut holding the toggle switch in place ( see ‘Pricing’ tab for a dimensioned picture of the socket so you can make your own, or we also have them made up in stock ).  Remove the toggle switch, rotate it, and re-install it.  Then remount your Stick Grip.  See the ‘Pricing’ tab to buy the socket.

The colored cap just snap onto the push-button switch.  Pull the cap off using a shop rag and a pair of pliers ( the rag is so that the pliers teeth don’t mark the cap ) and see if the switch works normally, AND check continuity.

If the switch works without the cap, there is nothing wrong with the switch.

When the caps are injected by the mfg., there is a little ‘tit’ where the cap material is injected into the molded, called the ‘Gate’.  Sometimes the Gate needs trimmed off.  Also, there may be a berm around the perimeter of the cap.  So we trim them off.
This very rarely occurs, but if the Gate and / or berm does not get trimmed off enough, they can drag on the walls of the counter-bored hole.  By trimming the Gate and / or berm off, and / or scrapping excess paint out of the counter-bored hole with a slim Exacto Knife, the switch will work fine.

But, if you are changing out a switch, follow the above to remove the colored cap.  Then simply take your Stick Grip apart and use a ground down long 5/16″ x 1/4″ drive socket to remove the nut holding the push-button switch ( or toggle switch ) in place ( see ‘Pricing’ tab for a dimensioned picture of the socket so you can make your own, or we also have them made up in stock ).  Install the new switch, then remount your Stick Grip.  See the ‘Pricing’ tab to buy the socket.

Yes.  Simply follow the Installation Instructions on the back of your Pictorial Wiring Schematic that came inside your Stick Grip package ; BUT, leave the Red Trigger out until you get your Stick Grip to close nicely on your stick tube.  THEN, install the Red Trigger.

Now, if you are having trouble getting your Stick Grip to close on your stick tube, either you are pinching a wire, or your stick tube is lager than 1 inch ( our Stick Grip ID is 1 inch at the bottom, and 0.993″ to 0.998″ ID where the Lower Boss goes through your stick tube per instructions so the Stick Grip clamps snugly onto your stick tube ).  Ya see, the problem with 1 inch extruded tubing these days ( since the time when we made our Stick Grip injection mold in ~1992 ), 1 inch extruded tubing is now no longer 1 inch OD!  It is +/- 0.015″ in diameter ( just like a 2 x 4 is not really 2″ x 4″ ) !!  And if your stick tube is powder coated, your stick tube is way over 1 inch OD, which is the ID of our Stick Grip.  You will have to polish the powder coating off your stick tube, and maybe even polish a little of the stick tube metal off, until your stick tube is 1 inch where your stick tube goes up into the bottom of the Stick Grip, and 0.993″ to 0.998″ ID where the stick tube lives inside the Stick Grip around the lower boss area.  As always, using a corrosion inhibitor on the bare metal inside and out ( any bare metal, for that matter ) is a good idea.  As always, call JD any afternoon after 1330 Pacific Time M-F if you have any questions.

Well, you can’t see the labels while you are maneuvering the plane ( my Navy stick grips were not labeled ), so what’s the point/why bother — you built the plane and well know what they do anyways. When driving you can’t read the buttons on your steering wheel, and the front side of the steering wheel is not even labeled — you just have to remember what they control. But, if you want a reminder or want to show someone you are letting fly your plane the Stick Grip functions, the standard thing to do is to simply label a picture of your Stick Grip functions and print it on the back of your Pocket Check List ( PCL ), then laminate both sides. A few, and even fewer DAR’s, still want the Stick Grip functions labeled? Simply use a label maker with white or gold letters on a black or clear background, then use tweezers to place the labels and NOT your oily fingers, or you’ll have problems with the labels like you did on your models when your were a kid using your fingers. Some have had their Stick Grips laser engraved.

If I run the inputs from TWO Stick Grips into ONE trim circuit — meaning that either the Pilot or Co-Pilot Stick Grip China Hat trim button causes the trim to move ( just connect BOTH “B” from both Stick Grips to C1A+, and “P” pins from both Stick Grips to C1B+, so that either Stick Grip can run the pitch trim ), is that OK? The issue would be that _IF_ the two trim switches were moved opposite — pitch UP on one, and pitch DN on the other, then both C1A+ and C1B+ would be grounded.  What happens in that case?”

The Trim Relay Deck has two SPDT relays per axis ( be it a single axis  Relay Deck, or the three axis  Relay Deck ).

There are then four possible conditions dependent upon the switches:

1) Both inputs ( C1A+ & C1B+ ) are not grounded = both sides of the motor are grounded ;
2) The “A” input is grounded = the motor “A” output will have power, “B” side will remain at ground ;
3) The “B” input is grounded = the motor “B” output will have power, “A” side will remain at ground ;
4) Both inputs are grounded = both sides of the motor will see power.

Condition #4 is concerning to some as is this may seem to cause a short or overload — not the case.
With both sides of a typical two wire motor connected to +V, there will be no current flow as there is
no path to ground.  In the case of two Stick Grips wired to control the Relay Deck, if one Stick Grip is pushed for
left trim and the other to right trim, the motor will simply stop.  To isolate the co-pilot Stick Grip ( if you are
flying with a “button pusher / Grandson”, simply add our Co-Pilot Isolate Switch that will disconnect the ground to that appropriate Stick Grip(s).

I see your Stick Grip is well seasoned.
If you want it to look near new again, lightly sand it up with 400 grit sandpaper to smooth out any scratches.  Then *lightly* wipe it down with acetone using a paper towel (hopefully you use a paper towel that doesn’t leave flakes — our paper towels we buy don’t do that).  Then pull the colored caps off using a pair of pliers and a shop rag.  The shop rag is to keep the pliers teeth from marking the caps.  Tape off the stems of the switches, tape off the red trigger, tape off the stems of the switches, tape off your toggle switch(es) if you have them, tape off your cockpit, and *lightly* fog paint on the Stick Grips with SEM 39103 paint.  Depending on room or outside temp they should be dry in 1+ hrs, but I’d leave them alone overnight.  If it’s raining, foggy, or just very humid, the paint will dry with an amine blush :-/ .  You’ll need to warm up the Stick Grip, and maybe warm up the paint.  Also, before use, we use a paint shaker for 5 minutes on each rattle spray can before every use.  If you don’t have a paint shaker, a hardware store will shack it up for you.  Or, you’ll get a good exercise shaking it up by hand .

Ref:  Components, Materials, Manufacturing, and Inspection Certificate of Conformance

INFINITY Aerospace  Part Numbers:

CERTIFICATE OF CONFORMANCE

This is to certify that the parts listed on your Pictorial Schematic via our IA Part Number, and their internal components and materials, have been inspected and conform and comply with our requirements, and delivered per your custom request.

Infinity’s Forever,