Cutting Pitot inspection panel hole

Hours: 1.5

I was planning to finish to Ailerons, but unfortunately in my final prep, I realized that I received two right side balance tubes instead of a left and a right one. The missing tube should be here sometime next week, so until then, the Ailerons are on pause.

This gave me some time to finally make the big step of cutting out the hole in the Wing for the Pitot inspection panel. I received the heated & regulated Garmin Pitot tube from the Factory and verified that it will fit nicely on the back of the round inspection cover, so I will mount that and I can keep my square inspection panel I designed for some other time.

First I did a lot of measuring and marking based on the plans. Since this is truly a moment of measure-twice, cut-once I measured and re-measured a few times.
Marking the center and hole to cut out Hole marked and alignments checked Time to prepare the cutter Marking the pilot hole for the cutter

With all the marks in place, I started with cutting the pilot holes for the center mark and the cutting head.
Using the center punch to mark the pilot holes Using the step drill to upsize the cutter pilot hole Pilot holes drilled

The final moment of truth – Time to cut the hole for the inspection panel using my nibbler cutting tool.
Time to cut a hole in the wing

I cut the first half of the circle and then reversed the tool since the Pitot tube mast was in the way of completing the cut in one direction.
First half of the circle cut - I had to reverse the tool at this point since the pitot tube mast blocked finishing the circle from this direction

The cut came out pretty well and I just had to do a little bit of sanding to smooth the edges.
Inspection hole cut Temporary placing of the backing plate Inspection Cover fits perfectly

 Timelapse video of cutting the hole

2 thoughts on “Cutting Pitot inspection panel hole

  1. Pingback: Pitot Electrical Wiring - Philip's Sling TSi Build Log

  2. Pingback: Installing the Pitot Tube - Philip's Sling TSi Build Log

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