REFLECTOR:Minor pucker factor on 2nd test flight

[Scott Derrick]

Lessons learned...

Went to the airport this morning for flight #2 after major repair of nose 
up gear landing incident.

Nice cool morning.  This test was to see how the oil cooler worked without 
the outlet inverse scoop.  It was ground off during the gear up and the 
factory said many folks were not installing the outlet scoop, so the outlet 
is flush with the fuselage, which looks a lot better.  And I don't have to 
fabricate one..

Unhangered, preflight, warmup, runup, all normal.

Back taxied to 31, wind calm and cool,  fire walled her and RPM came up to 
2350, nice,  rotated at 65, climbing at 80, 85,  400 ft agl hit the gear up 
switch, about 2 seconds later rpm drops to 1900!!! Oh, now this gets your 
attention!  Still smooth but what a power loss.  Push the nose over to 
maintain airspeed and start thinking about  that obanded carrot field 
strait ahead.  Turn on boost pump no change, full rich no change.  Lean a 
little no change.  Decide to stop gear retraction and put it back 
down.  I'm still climbing slowly and start a slow turn 45 degrees to the 
right in anticipation of a quick left 225 degree turn for a landing on 13 
if power degrades any further.  EGT and CHT's are all roughly the 
same...  Suddenly full power returns,  what a good feeling.  I make a steep 
225 degree left turn, line up on 13 and land...

Taxied to the FBO and me and Wes(Friend, FBO owner, A&P, IA)  listen to a 
full power mag check, sounds fine??  Then I remember, the power dropped 
during gear retraction and returned after I put it back down... Hmm... drop 
in voltage or surge, possibly lost the EI?

I taxied back to the hanger, pulled the nose hatch.  wires to EI's  breaker 
were OK.  Wires to battery were loose. Not loose as in floppy but not 
tight..  I had installed a new Oddysey  battery last week and obviously I 
had not tightened them up properly.  Tighten battery cables.

Taxied back to runway, take off normal, wait until pattern altitude to 
retract gear, no problem. Cycled gear 3 times, not a burble..

Now for oil cooler testing.....

Scott

BTW, Oil temps were in the green, 205 in climb to 10,500 and 195 in cruise 
at max RPM 2700.

"Those who sacrifice freedom to get security, deserve neither."
- Benjamin Franklin