Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

Yep, flying is fun, surprise, surprise. With everything all put back together and triple checked, I launched this morning at around 11am. A good time for a lazy Saturday afternoon. The weather is severe clear and about 75 degrees. It is no surprise that it wasn’t long before the new tower controllers had their hands full with all the traffic that this kind of amazing weather produces on a weekend.

Anyway, I was looking at prop governor performance and the effects of the new inlet shape. The prop was rock solid. I couldn’t upset it, I tried really hard, but I also couldn’t get the oil temp above about 170 degrees, so that test is still a bit inconclusive. The inlet shape change definitely made a positive difference in cooling balance and did increase the pressure differential (I had my digital manometer setup for this flight). Both good things.

This weather is great. Pattern altitude before reaching the end of the field, and no restricted climbs due to temps. I was able to point it toward the sky and let-er’-rip straight up to 6500′. Much fun.

Well, it has been a whole six days with no commentary. At the end of last weekend, I pulled the new PCU prop governor off to have it checked one more time by American Propeller. They declare that it is perfect, so I am getting it back today. I still have a prop surging issue sometimes on initial climb after takeoff. While the governor was off, I took the time to do some more “body work” on the cowl bottom around the new louvers. Just an incremental step down the path toward paint. I also decided to go ahead and modify the air inlet shape of the upper plenum. The plenum is all done and ready for a test flight. That should be very interesting. I can’t wait.

I’ll get the prop governor reinstalled and reset the high rpm stop on the prop (static runup) and do some more test flying. If it still isn’t stable, I have another couple of things I can look at: Pull the prop and make sure the crank plug is secure and do a prop control line pressure bleed test (Lycoming Service Instruction 1462A).

Some of these pictures are just for my reference and amusement. Oh, yeah, I got some of these cute little camloc latches that I’m thinking about using to redo my oil door, as seen on VAF :). Nothing wrong with the one oil door currently, but we know how to do better.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Tanya did local flights with me two days in a row! She is really trying hard to come up to speed and is doing great. Friday evening we went out and she practiced a bunch of landings (winds calm). She has a tendency not to use enough rudder when high pitch, high power. So I setup a little exercise. I took off and setup a full power 85 knot climb. I told her I’ll fly the plane, except I was going to let her operate the rudder. She was to just focus on keeping the ball centered. Ok, “I’m going to start relaxing my pressure on the right rudder, you ready?”. As she picked it up, she said “wow”, as she focused on keeping the ball centered. This really does take a whole lot more rudder pressure than she was so used to in the Cessna 150 that she learned to fly in. Cool, good exercise. “Now, do that next time you takeoff.”
Then we went up to 3500′ and practiced flight at approach speeds with flaps. I’m having her use two speeds. 70 knots after abeam the numbers (up to 20 degrees flaps) and 65 knots on short final after the final notch of flaps. This works best for us for now and leaves a lot of fudge room. We have a 5000′ runway to get the details worked out on. I’m very happy with the three position FPS flap position system. There is no guessing how much flaps you have and most of all I like the repeatability of various one touch flap positions.

Since the winds were calm, we spent some quality time in the pattern and Tanya did about four very good landings. She has a bit of a learning curve getting over the fact that this isn’t a tired old C150. Back at the pumps to top off the tanks before putting the bird away as the sun went down. After it was put away, we extracted a couple of cold beers from the hangar fridge (I have two refrigerators in the hangar) and relaxed as the sun finished its descent over the other side of the runway.

Saturday brought some more interesting winds and we needed to get out and play with the new control tower at our field before it becomes really “official” next week. We were off the ground by about 10:30am. More Tanya training. With the higher winds (gusting to 20+ knots) this was a great time to practice turns around a point and S-turns across a road :). We spent the better part of an hour with her practicing those two things. Super high value time. All a great exercise to maneuver in relation to the ground and maintain altitude. As a reward I suggested that she fly over the neighborhood and utilize these skills. Back at the airport she set us up for a great pattern entry and it was my turn. I did six laps in the pattern with touch-n-goes to exercise me and the new tower trainees. The gusting winds were very good practice for me. Much fun. Time to go home and cook some BBQ.

This evening was severe clear so I headed straight out for a little flight. I got off of the ground at about 5:45pm. I headed south and just wandered around some familiar territory. I went and “buzzed” (if you can call it that from 1800′ AGL) our neighborhood for a little while. Then back north for a little climb testing. With cooler temperatures, climb performance is noticeably increasing. Then back to GTU for one full stop and a couple of touch and goes. One landing was kind of like plopping onto the runway, the others were much better. I have 80hrs. on it now and am still tuning the landing procedure.
Back at the hangar with the bird all put away, I pulled up a comfy chair and cracked open a cold beer and watched the sun finish going down. Life is good.

Saturday morning we flew to the Breakaway airpark fly-in. It was a small affair, but well organized and much fun. The runway is only 30′ wide, so that was an interesting change. There were airplanes to see, people to talk to, and good food. We’ll definitely go back next year. After a couple of hours there, we took off to San Antonio to visit with family. It was a fantastic RV day!