First flight
The first flight was completed this afternoon. It was quite flawless with no issues or surprises.
We spent most of the morning watching the morning low clouds. Once the cloud deck had lifted above 3k’, it was time to go for it. Stu McCurdy provided chase plane services, not to mention the periodic checks to be sure my brain was still engaged. He made all the difference in the comfort (if you can call it that) of the flight. Tanya remained on the ground by the taxiway with the fire extinguisher, cell phone for a call to emergency services, and a hand held radio. That was the total of today’s flight crew.
We briefed the plan before the flight and after a quick radio check, Stu took off first to clear the pattern. The normally very busy Georgetown pattern was cooperative. I got rolling as Stu came back around. I ran through the check lists to be sure I didn’t do something too stupid, like leave the canopy open, but didn’t waste any time on the ground for the sake of the new engine breakin.
Initial climb ended up at about 100+mph and about 1400+ fpm. At 500′, I started a turn to keep close to the field. By the time I was on downwind, I was well over the top of the pattern. We went up to 3k’ right quick :), and setup for about 30min of laps around the field at 75% power for engine breakin. The aircraft trimmed up quite easily hands off. I had the engine instrumentation displayed on the number two EFIS on the pilot side and I watched the engine instrumentation like a hawk. Everything was totally normal and predictable. The max CHT was 416deg on one of the rear cylinders. The forward cylinders were under 360deg. We’ll get some more time and data to explore the temp spread. While I was doing these laps, Stu did a thourough inspection of the outside and bottom of the aircraft. He was looking for fluids streaming away, big parts intact and aligned, and trim state. I must admit that I only briefly saw him once out of the corner of my eye. Other than that, I paid no attention at all to the fact that he was right in close formation reporting measured amounts of good news. Keep in mind that I’m in no way qualified to manage close proximity in flight, but he clearly made up for that fact, probably wondering why I couldn’t hold a stable altitude for very long :). Yeah, I was pretty busy and found myself +- a couple hundred feet every now and then. No problem, and Stu didn’t complain.
After many of these laps at about 160mph indicated, I got things slowed down to see how it would feel on approach. I marked a power off stall at about 49mph. My technique was pretty sloppy, but that was good enough to see how it reacted and what the indicated airspeed would be.
A couple more “hair on fire” laps and I started planning my powered decent back into the pattern. All this time, there was the normal Sunday afternoon traffic in the pattern below me. I was headed back down on upwind just as a Tomahawk was taking off for touch-n-go’s. As I was coming down hill (fast), I asked him if he would give me a little room on the crosswind to downwind for me to do whatever I needed to do. They did a 360 just outside downwind and let me cut ahead in my decent. I was very appreciative for that cooperation. To my surprise, I got it slowed down reasonably well on downwind without cutting too much power (new engine break-in thing). I kept the approach pretty tight (for me) and crossed the approach end of the field at around 80mph, over the numbers even slower, and just floated it on with the nose high and not even a bump. It really was one of my better landings. I did end up using full flaps as it just felt better with all this excess speed. Stu predicted that I would see the light before we even departed.
I think this airplane and I are going to get along just fine. It is time for us to begin building a good relationship and some trust.
Next up is a good full inspection and I’ll go do it again.
As I taxied in, Luis was setup beside the taxiway with a high-end camera on a tripod taking pictures of my landing. This was not planned but I am very thankful for the pictures. Thanks Luis. Apparently they heard us call “first flight” upon departure and switched frequencies with us to listen to the action above.
http://picasaweb.google.com/luis.orozco/ScottTanyaSRV9AFirstFlight
