66.7 Hours TT
5/10/08: EAA83,
our Terre Haute chapter, had a meeting with a fly out to MTO. Coles
County is a great little field with 3 uncontrolled runways and a
restaurant right on the field. We had 20 planes show on a beautiful May
moring, repleat with sunshine and mild winds. Jeff Tucker road along
with me, and flew the Rocket from the back seat. He even did a pass at
Bussart's stip near Paris. I took the controls for a 200 knot
pass down 11, then came around for the BEST landing I have ever had in
ANY airplane. I didn't know the rubber was down until I could feel the
tailwheel turn the plane. SCHAWEEEET!Keith Welsh finally made it to the airport and got out his Onan powered Quickie. That little plane still looks like new, and I'll bet it's a blast to fly.
5/6/08: Don Riviera at AirFlow Performance recommended that I change 4 injector restricters, based on my engine leaning data. Stock restricters are .028 diameter openings. Two of my TMX-IO-540 cylinders need .0275 restricers and two of them need .0285 restricters. The AirFlow Performance restricters are $25 each (plus shipping of course) and not returnable or exchangeable. That seems kind of like a raw deal, especially if they don't help. But if you take your plane in to AFP, you can pay them $300 and they will balance your injecters within .2 gph if it takes many injectors and all day to do it. I'm just hoping that one round of injector nozzle changes is all that it's going to take.
5/4/08: Today, Jeff Tucker and I flew to Moraine Airpark, just south of Dayton, Ohio. It was a beautiful cloudless day. Surprisingly, the participation at Moraine looked pretty thin. That fly in has a reputation of drawing 2 or 3 hundred planes. Yet on one of the most perfect days of the year, by the time we arrived, there were probably only 50 or so planes. It was a fun fly in, none the less. Jeff took lots of pictures. I didn't get around too much, happily spending most of my time talking to Paul and Rudy Siegel, next to our Evo Rockets. Rudy evidently took a video of my departure and show pass as we left Moraine. Nice!
I was happy that on the way over, the autopilot drove Jeff and I just above the cloud tops. I had time to do the leaning documentation in order to actually get data for balancing my injectors. Looks like the injector nozzles as they are set up right now, and at the settings and conditions that I have on my TMX-IO-540 are within about .6 gph flow. I thought that was pretty good, but hope it can get better. There's quite an EGT differential, some 90 degrees, between the last cylinder to peak and the first. I'm sure there is room for improvement. I sent the data to AirFlow Performance to see what Don Riviera thinks. Anxious to change out some nozzles and save some fuel.
4/27/08: Today I flew to Greencastle for gas, then back to HUF, then over to MTO for breakfast with Wayne Sanders and Betty DeBaun. I flew leaned and throttled back to 172 speeds. I was defininetly under 9 GPH, but the engine kept missing, so I didn't try to lean it out any more. It was a nice flight. Departed the grass at MTO which was great.
Didn't go flying many nice evenings or weekend days that we've been having because we have been having March-like winds. 100LL is just too pricey to want to go out and get beat up in the air. So I stayed on the ground a lot. And went and bought a new car. (My Subaru is still in the shop after 9 weeks, too!)
4/22/08: I went for a short hop after work tonight. Was going to check my leaning/egts to get my injectors balanced and try to reduce my fuel consumption at speed. After a short cruise climb, I set the AP and it wouldn't hold. I had burned about 1.5 hours out of my left wing, and the right wing was VERY heavy. Even when both wings are full, the right wing is heavier than the left. Now the autopilot did such a poor job of trying to keep track, either it's too weak with an out of balance wing, or the servo has let loose again. Either way, I gotta open up the floor and check it out again. Perhaps I need to install the torque enhancer after all. Certainly I was going to have a tough time holding the plane and writing down all the notes as I leaned at altitude. At least it was a VERY nice night to fly.
4/16/08: Didn't fly the Rocket today, but did get about 30 minutes behind the right controls on SOB's Comanche. That was fun. Nice flying bird to be sure. Rudder was VERY light and the plane was quite stable. Considering how much Mother Nature was banging us around, the Comanche was comfortable and performed smartly.
I didn't think we'd get a chance to fly because I was planning on tackling a blown master cylinder. Well, it turned out to be a poorly executed compression fitting. So I replaced the bit of Nylaflow tubing and the two fittings on each end (parking brake to right master). Then Watler, SOB and I futzed around trying to bleed the brakes. In walks Chad Williams. He makes a couple suggestions. Watler hooked the clear "fish tank" tubing to the bleeder screw, SOB held the other end of the tube in the brake reservoir (and made sure the res was full/not overflowing), and I pumped the brakes. All the air came running up through the tube, the pedal began to have resistance quite quickly, and the process was finished in a matter of 5 minutes or so. And no synthetic ATF fluid was harmed (wasted) with this process. Chad's "Fish Tank Hose Bleeder" trick is now my standard on the Rocket.
4/07/08 - 4/11/08 Sun N Fun: I got up and flew to Hendricks County (2R2) wondering if the gaggle of RV's was actually going to go down to Sun & Fun. 4 of them were, and they didn't have to try very hard to talk me into going. My plane was still packed and ready, so off we went. First to Franklin Indiana to hook up with one of the RV's. Then we headed south at 9500. It was nice and smooth up there with a little push. I locked onto our fuel destination and followed Mike Worth in his red RV4. When we arrived, 3 ships decided to fly VFR over the top, and Mike and I decided to stay low and run underneath. It ended up taking Mike and I a lot longer to get there, it was pretty ugly. But we made it as far as Cross City for the night. The next AM, we made our way under low scud again to Zephyr Hills, where Mike had a rental car and rooms reserved.
It had rained 5+ inches at SNF before we got there. And it showed. Man, that place was a swamp. Standing water everywhere. The crowds were down to a minimum. The planes were down to a minimum... maybe 10 rows of show planes on the flight line, less than half the warbird ramps filled, and the antique camping area had only 3 planes in it. What a let down.
The trip back wasn't much better. At least we had 20 knot tailwinds. But the weather went south as we got farther north, so Mike and I put down in Seymore, Indiana, which is just about 50 miles or so short of our destinations. A wall of black was moving in on us, so we put into the field. Don Miller, who owns a beautiful hangar at SER allowed us to put the planes in, then gave us a ride to a car rental shop. It was a long drive back and forth for me to go home, but I was certainly glad to be on the ground. We drove through some fairly torrential rains heading up to Indianapolis.
Friday morning, the line of thunderstorms moved on, and there was a gap in the weird weather that was over the midwest. So I took off in the car to pick up Mike at EYE, and then down to SER. We had to hustle before the winds got up to the forecast 60 mph in the area. Even then, it started raining on us as we departed even though the forecast said it would be clear. Happily, we shot out of the rain right quick and it was actually nice conditions for the 30 minute or so trip home. Landing in 15G25 just off the nose was a real treat, but I was glad to be home and on the ground.
Just before we departed ZPH, a guy walked up to me on his way to the little yellow RV that was tied down two planes over. Turned out to be Lee Logan, fellow Rocket builder. We were both in a hurry to get home, but I couldn't resist snapping a picture of him next to the RV he flew down to SNF.
4/06//08: Even though it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, I aborted my trip to Florida. The plan was to go to Mobile or Pensacola, visit museums and wait for the weather in Florida to clear up. Well, most places down in the gulf region stayed marginal if not instrument conditions. I'm sure I could have made it down, but even Southern Indiana wasn't that great. I took off, headed for DCY to get (cheap) gas on the way, and found out that the FBO is closed on Sunday. And when I got there, the conditions were worsening to the south already. So I just decided to fly local again. I went to BMG for $4.12 gas, then went up to 2R2 and had a long visit with Jim Winings and many of his friends. Turns out that Bob Japundza, Jim, and several others are going to SNF tomorrow, and Jim asked if I wanted to tag along. Well, I was going to go anyway, and I'd sure feel safer on my first Rocket cross country having some company. But right now, it looks like storms across the panhandle and IFR conditions with moderate headwinds. I'm not sure a trip to SNF is going to come off at all. Once I would get down there and stay a couple days, the weather inbetween here and there is supposed to get really ugly. At least I got some really nice local flying in today.
4/05/08: John Watler got to be my first passenger today. On the first leg, he just had to ride. On the second leg, he got a little stick time. I think he liked it, except for the lack of proper cushions in the back seat. He's a bit long legged and big footed, so he was worried about staying off the rudder pedals. Well, we did fine. Made a nice pass over Bussarts with Comanche Bill, and headed for home. It was a long wait for the fog to lift this AM, but the afternoon rewarded us with a good lunch and a nice flight. Man, it sure takes a bunch of nose down trim with about 220 in the back seat to get the tail up!
John in the back seat after a sweet landing at MTO:
Back of my head.... for some reason. Camera test? I need a haircut!
One thing that SOB has to get used to is me passing him. Not many metal piston planes that are going to be in front of me from now on,
3/31/08: Today I mailed a check to Wayne Hadath, who now owns the Jantzi Steering Arm. I bought two replacement arms to have a replacement and a spare arm for my tail wheel. I don't think they'll make it down from Canada in time to install before I go flying next week, but I think I'll be OK for a little while with the mods I made with the arm to square up the notch that drives the pin. Got an email from Lucas at TT, too, who said I probably should set all my ARINC speeds down to LOW when using the VSGV, GRT EFIS and the GNS 480. Since the AP dropped out during enroute steering, I thought maybe the AP was getting overwhelmed with steering commnads at high speed from the 480 through the EFIS. We'll see what happens.
I like having the weight in the back when flying, particularly landing. I need to get rid of the salt bags and figure out some other way to keep 50 - 100 pounds way back behind me. Time to put some hold down "D rings" in the baggage compartment.
3/29/08: Another flight with 200 pounds in the back. Lumbering along following John Watler in a stol 172. I was burning some 8 gph at some point. Engaged the AP and it really lumbered. The tail oscillated up and down some, and the plane sort of wallered. The winds at 3000 feet were gusting and pushing up over 35 knots at times. Not much fun. Not a very good day for pics, either.
Tail wheel failed again. Left rudder pedal was no good on the tail wheel when landing. Finally figured out that the problem was the Jantzi arm as much as anything else. Where the pin goes into the slot in the arm, on the right side of the pin slot, where the pin rolls over the edge and retracts to allow castering, the metal was deformed. Evidently the pin had folded the metal there or something. I filed it round and squared up the edge. Now the pin is sloppier, but rides on a squared edge, not a deformed one. Hopefully that will keep the thing locked in. I hate riding the left brake trying to keep the plane going straight, especially in that transition from rudder to tailwheel.
While John Watler and I were at MTO getting ready to taxi out, we saw an unusual GA plane taxi in to the ramp. Talk about the $100 dollar hamburger ($1000 hamburger?).
Not every day you see a BAC 167 Strikemaster running around!
3/28/08: 2.8 this afternoon! Ah, what a nice day. Went out with moderate sun and bumps and played with the 480 and TT AP. This time I was actually able to get the autopilot to follow a flight plan. It wasn't perfect, and the AP dropped off a couple times. But we're getting there. It's VERY cool to sit there and monitor everything while George does the flying.
Another thing I did today was load up the back seat. First with 120 pounds, then with 200 pounds. I like how the plane lands with weight in the back seat. Very nice.
3/26/08: Finally! A nice little flight and the autopilot actually worked! WOOHOO! Last evening, I pulled the floor and seat out again, and repositioned the aileron servo push rod. I adjusted the rod ends and put the bolt in the inner-most hole in the servo arm. Using the hole closest to the drive shaft of the servo did the trick. Even though the rod is not quite perpendicular to the servo arm, it works great. At least up to 160 knots in calm air. I was just in awe of the fact that it held the plane dead nuts on track, and hold altitude beautifully (as it has all along).
Now to figure out why it won't follow a flight plan.... That's probably operator error. The TT manual says something about you HAVE to overfly a waypoint to get the AP to track a plan. Perhaps that's my problem. Or it's still configured improperly between the AP, EFIS and 480. I need to get in there and do some more testing.
3/24/08: A nice little flight through some heavy flurries and sunshine after work today. Parking brake worked great. Repaired heater cable/door worked OK, but I need to crimp in some resistance on the cable. Another thing that worked beautifully was cylinder #1. I removed the cover plate, shield, restrictor, whatever you want to call it, from the angle on the front baffles. Removing that plate from directly in front of the #1 cylinder instantly brought it's temperatures down to "normal". When I got back in the hangar, I removed the shield from in front of the #2 cylinder. I hope those front two cylinders will now both be closer to the temps on the other 4 cylinders.
What didn't work was the autopilot and blocking the oil cooler. I put some metal tape over the intake side of the oil cooler and it didn't make a dent in increasing the oil temps. I'm routinely getting temps of 163 and lower. Guess I'll put another strip of metal tape over the cooler face and try again. Sorta nice to know that the oil cooler is doing it's job.... too well. The AP tried to work. It just doesn't have enough OOMPH still to move the controls. It still wants to fall off to the right. Either I still have it hooked up wrong, or it's time to install the Torque Enhancer. Bummer.
3/23/08: Happy Easter! I desperately wanted to fly this AM, and I was hurriedly trying to repair the heater duct door I broke yesterday. Yes, while trying to install a parking brake cable, and trying to drill the heater duct arm for a B-nut, the drill grabbed the thin stainless arm on the door, spooled it up, and then ripped it off the tack welds. A few choice words were uttered... To repair the door, I merely used a single loop of hinge stock, slipped it onto the cable, bent the cable in a "U" shape (so that it locked onto the hinge), and drilled the hinge to the center of the door. An AN3-5 bolt and lock nut later, and I'm back it business. I also pulled the front seat out and cut the AP servo push rod back. It wasn't quite perpendicular to the servo arm, so I cut it, drilled it, tapped it and re-installed it. Now it the AP doesn't have the juice to fly the plane, next step would be to install the torque enhancer (TE), which is just a capstan (pully) with a push rod (special shaped aluminum channel) with cable swedged at both ends and wrapped around the capstan. Just need the snow to clear out.
So I was anxious to test the parking brake, the modified heater door and the modified AP servo push rod. But alas, Mother Nature chose to douse the airport with copious flurries. Nothing like wet, sloppy, freezing IFR to put a damper on test flying. Oh well, it just gave me more time with Dad and my step mother. It was a nice sunny afternoon at their house, the birds were chirping and the sun was shining (intermittant with snow). Finally, I just went home to have a nap. And the METAR never got good enough to warrant going back out to try. Maybe tomorrow?
3/20/08: Tonight