REFLECTOR: Successful first flight for N173VS

[Chris Barber]

Excellent!!!!!!! Congratulations. Well done.

Chris Barber
Houston
1.6 hours as of yesterday, flight five.

Sent from my iPhone 4

On Aug 18, 2012, at 6:26 PM, "Geoff Gerhardt" <geoff.gerhardt at gmail.com<mailto:geoff.gerhardt at gmail.com>> wrote:

Oh, I left out that when I got back to the hangar, I put the plane up on jacks and raised the gear to see what was wrong.  I realized that earlier in the day I had put 55psi air in the main tires (they had 45psi), but I didn't check the gear after this.  That extra inflation a was enough to cause the pilot main gear to hit the edge of the gear hole when it was going up.  I shaved off the gear hole where it was hitting, and it goes up fine, now.

Geoff

On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 7:10 PM, Geoff Gerhardt <geoff.gerhardt at gmail.com<mailto:geoff.gerhardt at gmail.com>> wrote:
Guys,

Just as I did with my wife, I'll tell you all first off that I had a successful first flight today.  There were a couple issues, but nothing serious (although one did cause some nervousness during flight).  I'd been putzing around most of the week doing high-speed taxis and checking and re-checking trying to build my confidence in this beast I built.  Finally, today, after a couple high-speed taxis and hops I had no more excuses.  I'd pushed it as much as I could on the ground without any issues, so it was time to take it around the pattern.  I got a bit anxious on the climb out and got the nose a bit high.  I've got a pretty "long" prop, so after I realized I need to build some speed before climbing and put the nose down, things got better (still not great climb, tho, but I suspect its what can be expected from a 68x74 prop).  When I raised the gear, the gear unsafe light stayed on.  I didn't think to turn around and look at the main gear legs, I just figured something wasn't quite sitting right in flight.  I did one loop around the pattern and when I prepared to land and lowered the gear, all green.  With the speed brake down, I dropped it down in a tight pattern and had a nice, smooth landing.  The airport ops guys know me here (KORH) and heard on the radio I was doing first flight.  I had told them I'd let them know when I was going to do it so they could get the emergency gear ready (KORH is a real slow class D - they're looking for some excitement).  I decided not to tell them, tho, as I didn't want any pressure if I got to the runway and wasn't comfortable.  Anyway, they heard me announce on the radio, so they scrambled the trucks - I saw them driving back as I taxied in.

Oil temp was fine (it was only ~78F on the field, tho).  One cylinder got a little hot, but cooled down fine when I leveled off - I'll have to keep an eye on that.  Its all a bit of a blur now, I suspect I'll be noticing things a bit more on future flights once I settle down a bit.  Took awhile to stop smiling...

Geoff


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