Lower cowl and gear leg fairings

I have been working on the lower cowl and gear leg fairings over the last couple weeks.   Finally got them to a point where I am happy with how things are working/flying.   At first the gear leg fairings affected my trim a bit and the Slip/Skid ball was about ½ off.   I simplify adjusted the gear leg fairings and after two flights of adjustment by trim was dead on.   Not sure why people are so concerned about these, or why they add tabs to their rudder.  A simple minor adjustment on the gear leg fairings straightens things out perfectly.   Anyway, I will probably do some more minor tweaking and fiberglass work/priming then call these done for the summer.

Breakfast flight and Gear Fairings

Bekah and I took our first airplane trip together (sort of) this weekend.   She actually flew with friends since I am not up to my 40 hours yet, but we flew in loose formation, so were able to see each other from the air.   In fact they snapped a pretty good pic of me from the air that you can see here.  It sure was fun to fly over to Pt. Townsend for breakfast and have Bekah there on a perfect weather day.

I have been flying off my 40 hours as quick as I can.  At this point I am up to 30.3 which means less than 10 hours and Bekah can fly with me.  Weather isn't supposed to be great this week so I decided to get into my gear fairings.  Turns out they are just like everything else and harder than I thought.  After about 5 hours I have them mounted, but still much more to do with them.  Tricky part is you have to jack the plane up so that there is no weight on the gear.  Then somehow make them straight with the center line of the plan.  There is no real spot to measure from on the fairing, so it’s just kind of do the best you can with plumb lines down the fuse.   I drilled a few extra holes in the fairings as I zeroed in on the best spot to fix them to their supports, so I will need to patch those as I continue to fit and drill them.

Tulip Patrol

I am now 8 flights into phase one and up to about 12.5 hours on the airframe.  Things are going well and I am just starting to get my head around some of the things I want to work on.   I don’t have a heavy wing so that is good, most RV’s come off the line with the need to address what is perceived as a heavy wing.   The airplane also seems to be fairly well coordinated, although I do find myself resting my right foot on the pedal to keep the slip ball exactly centered..  I still need to get the gear and leg fairings on before I do any adjustment to coordination though.

I changed the oil at about 5.5 Tach hours, looked at the oil screen, found nothing, cut open the filter, found nothing..  Very happy with that.

My Oil temp does seem to be a little low at 160, probably due to the northwest temps, but I might put some reflective heat tape on the cooler to see if I can raise it up to the 170-80 mark or so.

Fixed the canopy air exiting noise by using some stick on felt over the roll bar, makes it a bit harder to lock the canopy down, but the reward is a clean seal that is soft on the plexi to boot.

My morning flight today before work rewarded me with nice views of the Tulips over Skagit Valley.  I also did a stop and go at Arlington which is the first time my RV has touched any surface besides Paine Field.  Its only about 12 miles or so, but  was so exciting to actually touch down somewhere new for my RV ! 

Back to Building while in Phase 1

So Phase 1 is going pretty well.  I have had a few issues, but at this point most of them have been resolved.  The funny part is that most of my issues were with vendors work not mine.  Re-assuring, but at the same time I have given money to the vendors and when things don’t work it really is frustrating.  For example my fuel pump.   I really would not recommend the EFII pump to anyone, I’ll do a write up on that later, but that thing has leaked out of every single possible place that it could have.   Working with the vendor and doing some stuff on my own, it is functioning properly now with no leaks.  All other items except some really minor stuff have been resolved, so the plane is online fully and I have 5 flights with about 6 hours on the plane. 

So in my off time I am getting back to building.   Here is the first step on the wheel pants, basically getting each of them to fit together as good as possible.  Lots of sanding fiberglass, but I got them to the point where I am happy.  These will come together slowly over the  next few weeks, but at least I got a start on them.

Continued Phase 1 Flight testing and Squawks (Items needing attention)

So now that my first flight is complete, I have flown the airplane a total of 3 times.  Logging a total of about 4 hours.  Each time getting more familiar with everything and trying to identify and address issues between flights.  The weather around here has been a factor, so it slows me down just enough to try to work through each item between flights.   Issues that have come up and I am tackling are outlined below.

 

• Cabin heat door pulls shut due to pressures in the lower cowl.
• Slight sound of air exiting the cabin where the canopy connects with the roll bar, need to address that.
• My oil filler tube started to loosen as the paper gasket became lubricated with Oil.  It was safety tied, but I could tighten it about 1/8 inch so I tightened and re-safety wired it.
• Ensuring my engine alarms are set correctly for right pressures.  I had a high fuel pressure alarm due to incorrect setting, and an alarm on takeoff roll due to alternator not being turned on..  These issues are mostly ironed out.
• One of my Capacitive fuel senders is not reporting and I need to dive into that.

Tonight I will be going through everything again and getting ready for the 4^th flight.  Then probably an oil change after 5-6 hours of engine run.  Once things stabilize I will be starting work on the gear leg and wheel fairings.

Slowly working my way to 40 hours so that Bekah can fly with me !

704CH First Flight !

See the video Here:   704CH First Flight

I think I might have set a record from airworthiness inspection to first flight.   Funny enough as soon as Steve left I started putting the plane back together.  All the covers went on and the plane became ready to fly the same night.  Then I checked weather and found that over this weekend Seattle was scheduled to have unbelievable weather..  So I told Bekah I wanted to get out and fly Friday morning before the airport became a zoo over the weekend.

All things looked good the next morning both with the weather and with the machine itself, so literally less than 18 hours after I got my airworthiness 704CH was airborne over Paine field.   First flight went well and everything as planned.  Basically first flights are mainly to just pretty much make sure the plane flies as designed, and nothing more.  I was incredibly nervous to the point where even my radio calls were not as smooth as I had liked.  Lucky for me I called the tower ahead of time and told them my plan.  Take off, climb in the pattern out of their airspace, and orbit directly above for about 30 minutes, then descend into the airspace in the pattern and land.

Bekah had a handheld and monitored from the ground, also she caught a few pics, and a I got a full length video from inside the  plane.   I cut the video down to less than 5 minutes so that all the good parts can be viewed for those who don't have a lot of time.   ;-)   I mainly got the takeoff and landing on the video..  Please, no peanut gallery comments about the slight left turn on takeoff, which catches a lot of first time pilots in RVs.  I did nail the landing pretty good for a first landing though.   All else went well, but boy was I nervous and excited when finished to have flown the plane !

Airworthy !

I had some challenges finding a local DAR, but ended up getting Steve Knopp from Camano Island.  He signed up late notice, pushed my paperwork through the FAA and showed up on time less than a week after I contacted him.  He was great I would really recommend him for any aviation type maintenance or DAR work that you  might need.

He and his wife who helps run his business showed up on a great sunny evening in Seattle.  We started at 3:00 finished by 5:00 and I got my airworthiness pink slip and Phase 1 documentation.   He gave me a 100nm radius for my Phase 1 flying.  This means in my first 40 hours where I can't have any passengers  I am at least good to hit most any airport in western Washington.  Also, I know it looks like he  is handing me a blank white paper, trust me, its not !  :-)

The plane became something more than a hunk of expensive metal in about 2 hours, with the airworthiness certificate, this is now an actual airplane !