REFLECTOR: Fwd: Test flying update

Wed Nov 14 18:24:40 CST 2012

When the AP fails at night in the soup will it have enough stability for YOU to maintain altitude?

From: Geoff Gerhardt 
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2012 2:51 PM
To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list 
Subject: REFLECTOR: Fwd: Test flying update

Rene,

Good points - I haven't been practicing those scenarios enough.  Thanks for the reminder.

One other thing I didn't mention - the sparrow strainer.  Initially, I installed it as per the manual.  It had great pitch stability, but required some man-handling of the stick during high-speed decent.  I took it off and flew it for a bit and it was better (didn't require so much stick down pressure at high speed), then I put it back on upside down.  With it upside down, it doesn't have much pitch stability but it is a breeze to handle at any speed.  When I mean it doesn't have any pitch stability, when you push or pull the stick, it will not correct itself and eventually resume the original altitude, it will drift.  AP does a fine job of keeping it at altitude, and its not like it wanders all over the place so I may leave it like this.

Geoff 

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 11:21 PM, David Rene Dugas <renedugas at gmail.com> wrote:

  Thanks for the update. It can be boring but it can be exciting. I recommend you make a long list of emergencies and write out the procedure you think best. Now us the time for that. Then practice and plan: engine out, oil pressure loss, loss of a brake or tire on take off and landing. What will you do for fire?  Exactly!  How will you handle a door up, what will you turn off if you smell smoke,  wing tip vortex, loss of stick control of roll(practice rudder control). Can you knife edge it to lose altitude so you don't miss an emergency landing.  practice rudder control just above canard stall if you had to land off airport you'll be a pro. The list is long but you have time. Please preflight really well our planes vibrate too.
  Best.

  Rene' Dugas
  Sent from an Apple.

  On Nov 11, 2012, at 4:10 PM, Geoff Gerhardt <geoff.gerhardt at gmail.com> wrote:

  > I haven't posted for awhile, so I thought it'd be good to give you guys an update on my test flying.  Great weekend here in New England and I was able to get out for ~4.5hrs between yesterday and today.  I suppose I could have done more, but it is getting awfully boring flying around my little box.  But, here's where I'm at.  I've got 31.5hrs in so far, so not far to go.  I've had a few issues, but nothing too major.
  >
  > Cooling issues early, but a combination of plenum changes and cleaning injectors brought temps in line.  Now, in cruise my CHT's are within 4F of each other.
  >
  > I had a few oil leaks, but I found that these were being generated by poor oil venting.  I had been fooling around with oil separators and ended up putting too much restriction on the oil vent which caused a few leaks to pop up.  I was able to get the leaks taken care of and now I vent my oil line into the exhaust.  Its not really a permanent setup, but it works ok.
  >
  > The prop I ordered from Catto was a 66x74 (recommended from him for a SE-RG).  I found the take off roll a bit long and had been thinking about sending it back for re-pitching, but didn't want to be down for a month.  A canard owner on the west coast had an older Catto prop that would fit my left-turning engine, so after a rather long process we were able to identify it as a 64x76 and I had him ship it out to me.  I just started using this prop and it is working well.  Its shortened my takeoff roll and I still have about the same top end.  At 10,000', running 50F LOP, I get 150kTAS using 7.5gal/hr fuel.  That's about what I was getting with the other prop, as well.  The 64x76 prop is an older Catto design, so I think I'll get my original, newer Catto prop re-pitched to something similar to this as I think his new design is more efficient and may get improved performance.
  >
  > The original Matco brakes gave out pretty quickly.  Not exactly sure why, but the pads ate up the disks in no time.  After only ~15hrs on the plane, the pads were done and the rotors were deeply grooved.  For ~$350, I ordered the parts to beef up the Matco 600XT's I had to the 600XTE which are really just a thicker disk and slightly different pads.  So far, these have worked well and the pads and disks are wearing normally.
  >
  > I've had a bit of a nose wheel shimmy when I brake hard, so I'll probably give the nose wheel pivot nut a bit more torque to see if that helps.
  >
  > Even with the original prop, I've been able to get out of 3000' runways with plenty of room (good conditions, just me and full fuel, tho).
  >
  > The first landing I did with the plane on the first flight was the best.  I've gotten in the habit of really cutting the corner from downwind to final.  Just after the numbers I start to turn in and drop altitude as fast as possible.  This can lead to faster speeds on final if I get sloppy.  On tight fields, I do a longer final to make sure I can get good speed control.
  >
  > My alternator (PlanePower) failed last weekend.  It was a bummer, too, as I'd been traveling for a couple weeks, the weather was perfect and I was hoping to bank some hours.  10min after take off, the alternator light started to flicker, then went on solid so my weekend was ruined.  Don't really know why it failed (stator was fried) - its a 60A one that should have more than enough power to handle the loads I have.  They shipped me out a new one in time to fly this weekend, tho.
  >
  > Its been nice, now that I don't have any real issues that I can just show up at the airport, preflight then fly.
  >
  > That's about it, everything's going well and I hope to be flying outside of my box in a couple weeks.
  >
  > Geoff
  >

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