I ended up spending several days in Montreal last week, so that slowed things down. I finished installing the Navaid servo mount - I just need to purchase a long flat head screw to hold an Adel clamp that will hold the wire bundle that goes under the mount.

Now I'm working on the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) installation. I've got an ACK E-01 ELT. I selected this model as it gets good reviews for being trouble-free, and it uses regular D-cell batteries, rather than some expensive special one-off battery like many ELTs. The ELT mounts in the front right corner of the aft baggage area. According to the Canadian requirements, the mount must be able to withstand 45g in the forward direction, so I did a few quick sums that convinced me that I needed to put a doubler in this area to be sure the floor wouldn't buckle.

There is no good place to put the antenna on an RV-8 that meets all the "regulatory requirements". They want the antenna mounted as far aft as possible, and they want the position to "ensure essentially omni-directional radiation characteristics when the aircraft is in its normal ground or water attitude". I have no idea why they are worried about how it works in the "normal ground or water attitude". If the aircraft is still on its wheels after an accident, then I can just open up the baggage compartment and attach the ELT's portable antenna and start transmitting. If the aircraft is no longer on its wheels there is no way to predict what attitude it will be in.

The RV-8 canopy slides over the whole aft fuselage when it opens, so that area is out of the question. The windscreen and forward baggage door pretty much rule out the forward fuselage, and I don't want to be staring at the ELT antenna right in front of the windscreen anyway. Some guys mount the antenna horizontally under the fibreglas empennage fairing. Some guys put the antenna in the fibreglas wingtip. Many others put it on the RH arm rest next to the rear seat - this is the option I am using. The antenna will be quite close to a fuselage bulkhead, and the skin, so it won't have a perfect antenna pattern. But I'll use the portable antenna after an accident. If am not in good enough shape to get at the ELT then I probably won't survive until the rescuers get there anyway, so the whole point is moot.