Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

Week two without the plane has passed. Scott’s taken that time to work on the 8. I can also be caught in the garage from time to time. Another week of extremely hot weather is making this a little easier to take. Instead of sweating at the airport, the air-conditioned garage has been the place to be.

We had a friend that is a spam can driver visit us last night. He is considering building a 10, so we did or best to encourage him to come over to the “dark side”. A planned “short visit” turned into a 5 hour chat that lasted until midnight! Yet more proof that these things can be addictive.

This week Grady at GLO Custom called and said it was time. Tanya and I took the day off of work and she hit the road before 8am. I was wheels-up in 22C by 11am to deliver the plane to Grady at Northwest Regional (52F) at 12:30pm. Grady seems like a really great guy. We spent about an hour and a half with him going over the plane and fessing up about its flaws that need his cosmetic attention. He seemed genuinely interested in being sure that we got what we wanted.

After all of the poking and prodding of the airplane, we went up to his air conditioned office to get down to the real details of why we were there. Tanya picked out colors and we talked about paint. We left Grady with a whole lot of leeway for him to apply his skills. I’m just as interested to see what it looks like in a month as you are.

We headed out to the airport today to go fly some more laps. First, we needed to adjust the nose wheel as it was a bit wiggly down the runway the last flight. The plan was to push down on the aft end of the plane to lift up the nose gear so that Scott could test the breakout force. That didn’t get us enough leverage, so it was off to find another plan.

I put in the tail tie-down ring, hooked up a rope, and sat in it like a swing. That still didn’t get us there, much to my surprise. Needing a little more weight on my frame (not exactly sad about that fact), I went hunting for something that was heavy and compact. The lead shot was back at home to be available for tasks on the 8. What I did find was a 40 pound bag of salt. So, I am sitting in the ‘rope swing’, holding a 40 pound bag of salt, and STILL not enough weight to fully lift up the nose. Fortunately, we were close enough that Scott was able to push up on the nose gear enough to get the wheel fully off the ground.

I am incredibly happy that nobody walked by to witness this amusing situation. But now we know, it will take about 180 pounds on the tie-down ring to put our O-320 and constant speed prop in the air.

We had a local A&P, Bob Maddox, perform a dynamic balance of our prop today. He did a wonderful job and was great to work with. Highly recommended for the task. The prop started out pretty good as it was, .08 ips, and he got it down to .04 ips. That small adjustment made a world of difference! The improvement was completely apparent as soon as we started our taxi back to the hangar. Of course, we then had to go spend an hour in the air and put it through the paces. The plane is smoother and quieter at all RPMs.

The process in a nutshell: An accelerometer was attached securely to the top of the engine, and an optical tachometer was placed on the cowl. The instrumentation measured from these data points and calculated the amount of weight and location of where to place it. Where does it get placed? As a nut and bolt in one of the holes on the flywheel. (If you crave more details and technicalities, you’ll have to ask Scott.)

For me to get excited about a maintenance item is unheard of. If you are in doubt about spending the time and money, don’t think twice. Go get your prop balanced.

During our annual, I was assigned the task of updating the databases for the GPS. Somehow, not exactly by chance, I always seem to get the tasks that involve an actual phone call to a vendor. So, I was off to purchase data card readers from Jeppesen and Garmin. Garmin released a fix for the terrain database, so the upgrade is free until the end of the year. It isn’t as if the terrain changes all that much, but a $150 database for free is right up our alley. Besides, it is always good to have current data. We also updated the Obstacles from Garmin. Since I am having delusions of trying to get my IFR ticket, we subscribed to the monthly updates from Jeppesen as well.

Loading the drivers for the devices was as easy as could be. Downloaded the databases from the various vendor sites, and POOF, updated data cards. Dropped them in the GPS, fired them up today, and all looks good. The class D for Georgetown is now reflected on our display.

Now, the card reader for the Garmin update will be traveling from coast to coast. There are several folks in the RV community that would like to take advantage of the free terrain update, but the $200 cost of the data reader just wasn’t worth it. Several will help defray some of the cost, which will be a nice deal for all of us. Gotta love this group!