REFLECTOR: 20B runs on the plane

[Lynn Gallup]

Al,
I remember how you must feel about this achievement - You are now among that select few people who start such a project and actually get to this milestone. Congratulations!
Lynn

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Al Gietzen 
  To: reflector 
  Cc: Chuck Ennis 
  Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2004 11:56 PM
  Subject: REFLECTOR: 20B runs on the plane


  Ah-h-h; at last the smell of fuel and exhaust instead of epoxy.  One milestone in an airplane building project like this is running the engine on the plane for the first time.  I was able to do that today.  It was successful; and quite short.



  The reason for its brevity was the loss of use of the engine monitor.  This happened before the run - the display was dead the second time I turned it on for reasons yet to be determined.  After some checks, and a couple of phone calls, it was agreed there were no further checks I could effectively do, so it is removed and packed for shipment back to the supplier.



  I chose to proceed with a brief run anyway just to see that everything needed for engine operation was functional.  As most of you know, I had previously run the engine on the dynamometer.  The engine fired off promptly and ran just above idle just long enough for oil and coolant to flow and get detectably warm.  After checking everything out, there were no leaks, and I knew oil was flowing by the slight warmth of the filters and cooler.  I fired it up again, adjusted mixture a bit, ran for a bit, added a bit of throttle a couple of times, and shutdown.  This time I could also verify warm coolant flow throughout the system, and all air bled out of both radiators.  Very nice.



  Disappointed there will be no more runs until I have a functional engine monitoring system - delighted that everything else was just fine!



  How does it sound? POWERFULL! (OK, noisy).  How does it feel?  Smooth!



  Al





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