REFLECTOR: 1st Flight of N173DK

[Geoff Gerhardt]

Dennis,

I know from recent experience how exhilarating the first flight is.  That's
a great accomplishment, congratulations.

Geoff

On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Dennis King <kitfox94 at comcast.net> wrote:

>
> I made the 1st flight of my 173RG Elite (IO360 C1E6/MT hydraulic cs prop)
> this morning, 16 years after receiving the kit (stuff happens).  The flight
> went very well, and I even made a pretty good landing (thanks to John
> Abraham's exellent training and patience in Florida a couple of weeks
> ago...sorry for putting you through so many bad landings John).  I made the
> flight at my home field in Columbus Indiana (KBAK).  During my intial
> climb-out, I thought I had a very heavy right wing, but then I realized for
> some reason I was holding a lot of pressure on the right rudder pedal.
> When I released pressure on the rudder pedal, I found out the Roll trim was
> perfect!  I think I was holding right rudder out of habit because my old
> Kitfox IV needed that during climb-out.  When I got up to smooth air and
> leveled out, the plane flew hands-off with the ball in the center.  I was
> in the air a little over a half-hour and stayed within gliding distance of
> the airport, but the engine ran well.  I kept the gear down on this 1st
> flight and never went much faster than 100 knots IAS.  I had previously
> verified that my IAS is very close to the GPS speed during a 60 mph fast
> taxi down the runway on a calm day.  I made the flight without the main
> gear doors in case I accidentally went too fast (at John's suggestion).
> The only issues were a fairly high oil temperature and brake fade after
> landing.  As expected I didn't do a very good job looking at temperatures
> during flight, but luckily I can look at peak values after landing with my
> engine monitor system.  The CHT's weren't too bad, but the oil temp hit a
> peak value of 230 degF at some point during the flight.  I'm not
> comfortable with that because the ambient air temp was only about 70 deg at
> the time of my flight, and I only have 20 more degrees to the 250 deg
> limit.  I just have the one oil cooler in the nose.  Based on what I've
> read here, I may have to look at adding a second cooler.  My engine is zero
> time after rebuild, and I've read here that that can make CHT's high for
> awhile, and I assume this applies to oil temperature as well.
>
>
>
> I have the old MATCO brakes and I've seen a lot of dialogue about them
> here also.  When I landed I may have gotten on the brakes a little harder
> than I thought to make the mid-field turnoff from the runway (I was using
> the shorter 5000 feet runway at KBAK).  While taxiing back to the hangar, I
> barely had enough brakes for steering.  On the way out to the runway before
> takeoff, they worked a lot better.  After shutdown I got out and touched
> the disks and they were pretty hot, but at least there was no smoke or
> smell.  I've previously made sure the pedals aren't hitting the canard
> bulkhead and are not being limited by rudder travel.  I guess I'll be
> looking at upgrading the brakes and/or learning to not work them so hard
> after landing.  I didn't think I braked that hard, but when I think about
> it the midfield turn off is about 2500 feet from the threshold, and I
> touched down some distance past the numbers, so it was a pretty short
> rollout.  But I had about a 9 knot headwind, so it didn't feel like I was
> braking hard.
>
>
>
> Overall it was a very nice 1st flight and after landing I had that "high"
> that I remember from my 1st Kitfox flight several years ago that is better
> than any drug could ever provide.  I strongly recommend the factory
> training to anybody about to make their 1st flight, especially if you are a
> low time pilot like me.  A friend shot some video, but he wasn't used to my
> camera so some of it is pretty shaky.  I will cut and paste the best parts
> to make a watchable video and post it to YouTube later.
>
>
>
> Dennis King
>
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