Damazio family's RV-10 project: Ground plane, battery cable and firewall items

We ran the battery cable ftom the panel to the tailcone, and soldered the aft lug on:

Battery cable running forward to the panel

Battery cable arriving in the tailcone through the conduit

Continuing the cabin cover antenna work, we glued aluminum tape into the ground plane extension slots, and covered that with 3 layers of fiberglass:

Tailcone ground plane extension made with aluminum tape

Laying fiber atop the aluminum tape to close and reinforce the ground plane extensions

Tailcone ground plane extension with fiber laid on top

For proper bonding, we sanded the equivalent area on the skin, and used some Goo Gone to remove glue from the tip of the tapes:

Tailcone top forward skin with primer removed for contact with the ground plane extension

After riveting the tailcone top forward skin (part of the cabin cover section), I did some finishing to make the extension look flush with the cabin cover:

Finished tailcone ground plane extension

We then started the top TAS antenna (vaguely following what others reported here or here), by opening up a 1.5" hole on the cabin cover. Unlike others, though, I'm going to reinforce that spot as much as I can - with resin+flox on the sides of the hole, and a metal tube insert (to be held in place by the resin plus metal on top and bottom):

1.5" tube roughly trimmed for supporting the GA58 antenna hole

The GTS manual says that a 9"x9" plane should be sufficient if the antenna is in direct contact with it, and that area allows 10"x10", so I'll start with that and use the GTS ground test to verify.

We drilled most avionics-related firewall holes, including the ANL fuse holders, the grounding block and the MAP sensors: