Last year at Oshkosh, I saw Aveo's LED strobe/nav lite combo at their booth and was very impressed. It was much cheaper than Whelen strobes, smaller, used much less current and needed no big power pack. It was also much cooler and more modern looking. I bought a set and was just about to install them this month when Andy Millin informed me that Aveo had stopped producing them because they had developed a new, improved model in order to get TSO certification. I looked them up in Spruce and he was right. These new ones were even better.
After some wheeling and dealing, I got an Aveo dealer in the Midwest to sell me the new ones and take the old ones back in trade for a nominal service charge. Sure enough, when I got them they were smaller, more refined and obviously next generation. They came with no mounting instructions, so I am posting a step by step guide for the method I worked out.
You first use a supplied template to position the lights on the flat strobe mounting point on your winglets.Make sure the plane is level. One hole gets the post at the back of the light and the other gets a long #10 screw that holds the light in place. You will then need some way to get a nutplate on the back for the screw. The method shown below requires only one additional 11/16th hole.
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Use forceps to pop a # 10 screw through the hole you need to nutplate from the inside out.
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Screw a nutplate onto the screw, drill through the upper hole of the nutplate. Then, insert a rivet in the hole to hold the nutplate in position while you drill the bottom hole.
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Remove the screw with the forceps and countersink the rivet holes.
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Use a magnetic pickup to hold the side of the nutplate. Slide one rivet into the TOP hole. Carefully fish the nutplate into the hole and onto the rivet. Make sure you have the rivet gun at hand to avoid contortions trying not to drop the nutplate into the winglet. (Don't ask) After riveting the top rivet, use the back of another rivet to rotate the nutplate into the correct position to install the bottom rivet. Voila!
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Here it is with the countersunk rivets all ready to mount the light.
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One long #10 screw is all it takes to mount it now. Looks prettty good.
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Yikes. All these tools to mount a strobe.
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Same thing on the other side. Without the head scratching time to figure out how to do it, it only took 15 minutes.
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The new strobes are not only beautiful and high tech looking, they are very low profile and low drag. Love 'em!
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