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Monday, June 24, 2013

Our First Destination !

Bekah and I finally got the opportunity to let the plane take us somewhere wonderful.  Weather was perfect, winds were perfect and we launched off to Friday Harbor on Saturday morning.  Pretty much flew direct there over Whidbey Island, grabbed some flight following and at 23 squared at 4,500 was cruising at 200mph.  Made the trip there about 25 mins from Paine field.  We spent the day walking around the island, bucket of clams for lunch, and generally taking in the sights.  Everyone who travels to Friday Harbor is pretty excited about how they got there, people either have their own boat, or take the ferry in from Anacortes, but as we walked around it was fun to think that nobody there was in Seattle just 30 minutes ago like we were.   Only a few people get to fly in !  ;-)   The airport is only a 10 minute walk to town, so you just can’t beat it for a great island get away.






Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Bekah's First Flight

With Phase one behind me and things looking good on the airplane, Bekah and I decided to head up for her first flight.   All went well, and fortunately for us it was the smoothest weather I have experienced in all of my phase 1.  We flew up over the San Juans for a quick evening flight and returned to Paine field after about 45 minutes of flight time.   Great experience and now Bekah has flown in the RV  !



Saturday, June 1, 2013

Counter Weight/Balast and Phase One closure

I have been flying with different weights to simulate “Bekah”.  ;-)   Also to simulate luggage and different loading configurations.  Things went well and while I didn't hit every single weight I proved the plane flies well and that there is not a major difference in control feel.  With heavy luggage you end up with a bit slower tail rise on take-off and more pitchy movement on landing, but now that I have “felt” the characteristics I am good to close out my phase one.

Flying down to Renton Field I hit the fabulous 40 hour mark.  I didn't get a pick in the air, but now the plane has been test flown the appropriate number of hours, I have signed it off and am now entering Phase 2 which means I can take passengers to experience the airplane with me.  Oh, the reason I was heading down to Renton was to catch some aerobatic training in a Pitts..  Not cheap, but valuable experience for flying and for future aerobatics.


Also including what I think is just a great pic of my plane tied down for the first time at Renton Field.




Places we have been in our RV-7 ! (Blue 2013, Yellow 2014, Green 2015, Purple 2016, Red 2017)