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.

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  !

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.

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.