~ 149.5 Hours
TT and holding....
N540MT totalled in a forced landing 6/12/09
06//12/2009 ( approx.149.5): Regrettably, my Rocket had an oil line failure that resulted in total loss of engine power. I made a forced landing in a tall grass field near Mitchell, Indiana. On the roll out after touch down, the mains dug into very wet clay and my Rocket tipped up on it's nose, skidding nose down and then flipping over on it's back to rather violent stop. Both my passenger and I were treated and released from hospital with relatvely minor injuries. 540MT sustained substantial damage and undoubtedly will be totaled.
You can see where I crawled out from under. The plane was actually sinking as I was laying with my body still strapped in, and my head out the side of the plane, more or less resting on the ground. This pic is 24 hours laster and you can see the plane has sunk another inch or so. Sheesh it's seriously swampy there.
On Sunday after the accident, I got a call from the FAA telling me that my ELT was still going off. I had been called at the University of Louisville Trauma Center twice, before I had even been treated for my injuries. I told them how to get to the ELT, but they couldn't get access... and you can see why in the picture above. The ELT is behind the passeger seat, under the hat rack panel. And the remove switch up front on the panel would not shut it off. So they finally were able to find the antenna BNC behind the seat back and disconnect that. The signal was attenuated, but evidently still being picked up and reported by several parties.
I was told that it was my responsibility to shut off the ELT and asked if I had done that when I went back to the ship the next day. Of course I had not. Well, I HAD to shut it off. So in a frantic fray my restful, peaceful Sunday afternoon turned into a mad dash to figure out how to get to the ELT and shut it off. The only choice I had was to go down there and with a borrowed cordless drill and cordless sawsall, cut a hole in the side and reach in and shut it off. Fortunately my friend Jeff Tucker not only had access to the sawsall, but kindly drove me all the way down and back and assisted with the cutting and extrication. Sure enough, when we were near the plane (within about100 yards), you could barely hear the signal. I decided to not only shut off the ELT, I just removed it.
06//07/2009 (148.7): SOB and I flew to MQJ for the last day of the Indy show. This time, it was up over IND and direct into the downwind for a pass and landing on 25. SWEET!
Crappy phone pics:
06/06/2009 (147.7): SOB and I flew to MQJ for the big Saturday version of the Indy Air Show.
06/05/2009 (146.7): Flew to LAF for a static/transponder check. Josh was great to work with. After the avionics exercise was over, I flew down to MQJ to start working as a Ramp Rat for the Indy Air Show. The show has started and the airspace was closed by the time I got there. However, after loitering about 30 minutes, I finally caught a break and called the Air Boss. Ralph Royce was kind enough to clear me in for a landing, just before the A-10 demo made his run in. Sweet! I got to see some of the show from the air, about 10 miles out, then inbound. Lot of extra gas burning, but I had fun.
05/31/2009 (145.1): Don't remember where I flew this day. I think I was out somewhere testing my ignition. I think I finally nailed the problem down to a right angle BNC connector between the controller and the left B coil. The Radio Shack replacement I put in lasted about 1.5 hours. I need to order milspec or commercial grade BNC connectors. Maybe I can find them on the Mouser.com website.
05/24/2009 (144.5): Jerry Badger showed up Sunday AM just as I was putting the Rocket back together again. He was going to Rough River. He graciously waited for me to finish buttoning up and we flew all the way down to 2I3 at 7500 feet without a hitch. Had a nice 40 knot push. Bad part was that we missed breakfast and they were close in between breakfast and lunch for 1.5 hours. Duh. The other bad part was some completely inconsiderate dumbass departed opposite direction as we were turning base to land. Completely ignored our calls. Even made the Mooney that arrived ahead of us go into the grass so he could back taxi to take off. Some people just should NOT be allowed to fly. It seems every time I go to RR, there's one or two idiots making it unpleasant if not dangerous to go there.
So we departed back toward Indiana. We decided to go to 4I7 for lunch. Expecting heavy headwinds, we decided to return at 4.5K . Turned out to be quite comfortable (although a little bumpy) and only 6 knot headwinds. Lunch was fine, and Jerry and I parted ways.
While I was taxiing in, my phone rang. I answered while still on the runway (no traffic in or outbound of course). Bill Werth was flying over at 2R2. I decided to go over and get some gas. I ended up flying a little formation with him and his passenger Ben, another Chitaqua pilot. After that, I gassed up again and headed for home.
When I got home, I pulled out the bondo and my dremel and started working on fiberglass. I decided my windshield fairing was too wide (obstructed my view), so I cut 5/8 inch off of it at the trailing edge. I filled a few imperfections and let it sit. I'll go back and work on it some more this week.
05/30/2009 (142.1): John Watler and I departed toward Cleveland to see the USS COD. Got as far as the TTH VOR and aborted. Checked the ignition, found a loose BNC connector. Buttoned up, mag check OK, departed for KBKL, got to about Brazil, aborted again. Got on the ground. Igntion check, found one of the quick connects with the spade inserted between the plastic cover and the female terminal. Ooops. Changed the oil with 8 quarts of Phillips XC 20W50 (140.5) . Mag check OK. Departed for MTO for breakfast. No problems. Mag check on the ground at MTO, crap. RTB. Opened up, no problems. Closed up, mag check OK, departed back to MTO for lunch (with Mike King and Chat Chatergy in tow ala Cherokee 6). Mag check at MTO OK. Did a pass at Bussart's. Don waved heartily. RTB, checked the left ignition. CRAP. Ok, John and I got out the OHM meter again and went to town. I was suspicious about the right angle BNC connectors. Sure enough, wiggling the 90 degree BNC that was on the top B contoller lead showed an internittant open. A quick trip to Radio Shack to get a replacement (and an spare) hopefully resolved the issue. Hopefully....
05/29/2009 (140.3): Test flew the plane after checking the ignition again. "Mag Checks" OK. Got in the air, started running rough (just a weee bit). RTB. Checked again. Nothing.
05/26/2009 (....): I didn't fly, but worked on the plane this evening instead. Today, I installed two red LED lights to warn me should one side of the ignition fail. I ran 22 guage wires from pin 14 on each ignition controller to behind and above the backs of the top EFIS screen. I drilled two holes on either side of my N number and callsign placard. I put one of the LED lights in each .250 and then crimped the opposite polarity wires together. The lights will work oppositely... if one ignition controller fails, theoretically it goes to ground. That completes the circuit (+5 volts from the good controller to the LED) and the LED lights up. Simple and ingenious. With the two LEDs directly in my line of site, just above the top EFIS screen, I should have ample warning if half of my ignition goes south.
05/24/2009 (139.7): I flew to MTO for the ILS 29 again to confirm my autopilot and EFIS problems. Also wanted breakfast. The ramp and parking lot were packed with Corvette enthusiasts, so I didn't stop in. I confirmed that my EFIS would capture the ILS, but the AP is still flagged and will not follow down the glideslope. Also, without GPSS, the AP in heading mode blows through headings by over 10 degrees, then wants to S turn badly back on course. GPSS is dead nuts on laterally, but nothing else seems to be working properly. The AP is still letting the plane dive at 1000FPM in turns, even with the suggested static lag set at 2.
Later that afternoon, I metal prepped the fuselage and alodined the skin. Man, the plane was homely before, now it's down right ugly. But all that surface chaulking should be slowed to a crawl. Time to get serious about paint. Well, get serious about primer, anyway.
05/23/2009 (138.9): I met with Jim Winings and Paul Siegel this AM at Putnam County. Originally I was going to follow Comanche Bill up to Poplar Grove to get the layout of their airshow, which overlaps the Indy show. As I was cleaning my windscreen, Jim called and said he was meeting Paul at 4I7, so I headed toward 2R2. Jim and Paul discussed a new round inlet for the Rocket, and Paul was interested in all the extra speed and manifold pressure he could get. It was a nice Rocket discussion and information sharing session. Paul had a nice new Garmin 696 in his gorgeour EVO. Most impressive.
05/18/2009 (137.9): I got off work and bolted to the airport. Went through the entire troubleshooting flowchart from LSE's website. Nothing. What the heck. Buttoned it back up, rolled out and started up. Nothing. As in nothing WRONG. So I either have and intermittent problem, or the plugs were just fouled. Personally, I think I may have an intermittent problem. So, after doing a little reasearch, I found others with similar (but not exactly the same) issues. And as of this past February, LSE has put up a new dual electronic ignition FAILURE WARNING LIGHT diagram. So I'm going to wire in two superbrite LEDs that will illuminate when one of the ignition computer controllers failes. If my engine goes all wonky... or even if it doesn't, and one of the ignitions has failed, I'll get a visual warning. Which I plan to put at the top of the instrument panel, smack dab in the middle. If one side of the electronic ignition shuts down, it's VERY possible that in cruise it could be a barely perceptible change in the engine. The ignitions just run that good. I ordered two LED lights per the installation manual and waiting for Mauser to get them to me.
The flight was nice, but unproductive. The autopilot still failed to follow down the glideslope. Also, it was somewhat blustery, and the AP was pitching up a lot, and still falling down on turns. TruTrak emailed me back promptly and told me to set the static lag at 2. They had no idea what was wrong with the vertical steering... operator error or EFIS issue...
05/17/2009 (137.0) (.5 Comanche 250): Today I made a trip to MTO to test my refined autopilot/EFIS/480 combination. Everything works beautifully, except still haven't figured out how to get the system to drive the plane down a glideslope or step down on a GPS approach. I think the problem now is my learning curve. Not having used the IFR end of the GRT EFIS system, I'm not sure how those guys think. Seems that how the system operates is a little clunky. The big thing is that there is an "auto" soft key that really isn't automatic at all. Anyway, I finally figured out what I THINK I'm setting up wrong...
And the plane broke....
I didn't do a "mag check" at MTO when I departed. But Sunday evening when I was getting ready to go out and do another ILS test, I did do a " mag check" (I actually don't have mags, I have dual ignition... it's just easier to say mag check) and the engine felt like it was coming unhinged. Abort. The engine runs fine on one igntion, but the other sounds like it's only running on 4 (or 5) cylinders. Consensus is that I probably have an electronic ignition coil that has gone Tango Uniform. So we started doing diagnostics after I went flying with Comanche Bill. I got to crank and bank in the Comanche, that was a blast. She's a sweet ride!
I ordered a couple spare coils from LightSpeed just in case, and now I have to do more diagnostics.
05/15/2009 (136.0): A quicky flight that didn't amount to much. A low pass at PRG, Heavy cross winds and gusting badly. yuck.
05/14/2009 (135.6): After re-checking/re-vamping the autopilot to EIS to GNS480 wiring, and repairing one bad connection, John Watler and I did a nice run to test the autopilot and EFIS features. Wow, what a difference! The EFIS can now control the AP using data from the 480 to do vertical guidance. I don't know how to fully use the "Flight Director", but I'm quite impressed with the increase in capabilities. Two GPS approach passes at KPRG using the autopilot. The ground track and altitude hold were perfect. The EFIS didn't tell the AP how to step down, though, which was a setup problem on my part. I need to formulate a check list.
John flew two passes at Bussart's (from the back of course), and then flew back to base all the way to the numbers. I was a gloriously calm night, and I should have just let him land it from back there. It was dusk and smooth as glass. The view to the west from Paris airport was memorable. With over 10 inches of rain in the last couple weeks, there was standing water that looked like lakes or ponds in EVERY farm field as far as you could see. It's going to be a lousy season for farmers. Here it is mid May and the ground is so soaked, no crops are getting planted. Those already planted are probably lost. Not a good season for landing on grass stips so far, either.
05/11/2009 (134.6): Another quick run to Paris and three passes at Don Bussart's to test the autopilot. It's not working properly, but it is better than before. The updates of the EFIS software have helped, now it's time to tear into the wiring and reconfigure and add wires to increase the AP/EFIS/480 communication up to it's full and proper capabilities.
05/10/2009 (134.1): When I got back to Brazil, I had a message from Chat that Pat Adams needed a ride back from Boonville, IN. He was returning a beautiful Pacer to it's owner after annual. So I followed him down in the Rocket and rode him back. ITMT, it was a good opportunity for me to check out my autopilot. Friday I had been on the phone with GRT about reconfiguring my EFIS to get the 480/EFIS/VSGV combo working together. I had it all screwed up. And there have been software changes, as well as wiring changes (which will be the next project). I toggled my AP switch from 480 to EFIS and let the AP fly a flight plan and an approach after dropping Pat back at Clay County. The AP did everything it was supposed to EXCEPT follow DOWN the glidepath. I may not have pressed the right button.
Pat didn't get any stick time. Neither of us had a headset for him for the trip back, and I didn't want to have to turn around and yell any. I offered to get back together with him and get him some Rocket time. He was impressed enough to stand by the runway at Brazil and take a YouTube video of my take off.
05/10/2009 (....)(2.0 Cessna 172): Finally got to ride some more. John Watler took me along on a trip to pick up BIlly Werth and take him down to North Vernon to get the Pitts back. John was itching to fly, so I let him take Billy instead of a Rocket trip. It was nice to sit back and watch him operate the 530 and 430 connected to the STEC autopilot. It was a nice morning to fly, and a very comfortable trip. We did a pass at BMG to see if there were any hangar doors open down there, but since it was Mother's Day, it was a bit quiet most places.
05/04/2009 (132.2): Today I was on a mission to get Billy Werth back from North Vernon to have some cosmetic work done on his Pitts. Always fun to fly with Billy in formation. He frequently "checks the inverted oil system". His motto... "I'd rather be flying upside down" is VERY true. Check out Billy's air show schedule at GRAYOUT.COM !
05/03/2009 (....)(1.0 in Mooney 252): Had fun riding along with Jerry Badger in his twin turbo Mooney. He did three practice approaches and a hold with me as safety pilot. It turned out to be another gorgeous day, much to the chagrin of the forecasters. The Mooney is a nice ride and Jerry is most proficient at managing his systems. I hope to some day get my skills up to that level.... once I get the autopilot and EFIS bugs worked out. Those bugs seem to be multiplying....
05/02/2009 (130.1): John Watler and I flew the Rocket to KDEC for lunch. Good food and easy controllers. Can't beat it. Lots of standing water in the fields of Illinois due to the massive rains we've had for about a week. Gonna be muddy for a long while.
04/26/2009 (....)(1.1 in a PA24-250): Rode with Comanche Bill over to KMQJ for a Ramp Rats meeting. Boy, that Comanche 250 sure is a sweet bird!
04/26/2009 (127.8): Lynn Van Etten was my passenger on this very gusty April day. Her husband rode with SOB, and we all flew to French Lick for brunch and a quick peek at the casino. Despite the forecasts, it was very smooth above 3000 ft through into the afternoon. However down low caused me to execute, albeit successfully, the worst landing EVER in my Rocket. The tail "fell out" three times in the flair due to the winds on the bluff and over the trees. Wicked!
04/25/2009 (125.2): Puttered around flying to Greencastle for brunch and here and there. EFIS/AP/480 still don't like each other.
04/18/2009 (123.2): More senseless flying. Attempted to get the AP to fly some approaches. It doesn't work consistantly. I think I have major configuration problems in the EFIS setup. Looks like there might be some wiring changes on new installation manuals available at GRT. Gotta pull the boot cowl panels soon and trace some wires.
03/20/2009 (121.2): This has very little to do with my flying. Stand by.....
Drove up to Crawfordsville Municipal Airport at the request of Billy Werth. Why?
Huh? What's so great about a school bus?
Hey, there's no engine under that hood. Don't ask ME to push!
Oh look, Skip Stewart is here with Promethius. Wow, he sure is an amazing stunt pilot.
Wait, they've hooked the bus up to a tow strap and are taking it away..... What the......
Oh I see, this is not your ordinary school bus...
Uh, OK, looking at the back of the bus, I see that it has an ingenious propulsion system. Looks pretty.... HOT!!!!!
Paul Stender of Brownsburg, IN has a lot of experience in the jet vehicle genre. The SCHOOL TIME bus is the latest projet. Powered by a 42000 horsepower F4 Phantom J-79 engine, Paul's bus may be the largest jet powered vehicle in the world. It sure was a blast watching him blow Skip Stewart's doors going down the runway!
Thanks to John Watler for his movie file, which I uploaded to YouTube and the jpegs from our outing to Crawfordsville, IN..
Stay tuned, you can see the whole thing in HD on the Discovery Channel, fall 2009.
03/15/2009 (121.2): A nice March day to sweep out the hangar. Got rid of some stanchions we made for Victory Days, swept the floor, dumped trash. You know, Spring Cleaning kinda stuff.
At the end of the afternoon, SOB called and wanted to go fly. Then EVERYONE showed up out at the T hangars. Three of us, Rocket, Comanche Bill and Nail32 in his Comanche flew west into Illinois. Don Bussart was expecting us! Don's strip, in Dudley ILL, was soft. I thought my tailwheel was trenching down the runway! But it was fine. No problem slowing, that's for sure. And departure was fine. Glad I have excess power!
Sorry about the lousy phone pic...
Don was in great spirit, and Kako was friendly as ever. Bill, John and I had a nice chat with the Bussarts over a cup of tea. Nail32 (John Van Etten) swapped stories with Don. They had been close to the same areas in SE Asia, but during different wars. Van Etten was a FAQ in the early 1970s and later an F100 pilot in the ANG, and Don of course flew C47s for about 13000 hours during WWII. Of course that's just a small part of Don's logged 36000 hours of flight time. I swear, Don has more stories than any room full of pilots you can gather. Well, OK, maybe there's some others of Don's vintage that can rival him, but in his nearly 90 years, probably 75 of those flying, he sure has some dillys! One quick fact was that Don received the DFC for action in 1944, 1945. And even though he was never in the Air Force, he has an Air Force Honorable Discharge and all the benefits to go along with it. All well deserved.
Don mentioned that he once owned an AT-6. According to him, it wasn't JUST and AT-6 but it was THE AT-6. Not a prototype, but one of the first and original AT-6s available after the war. Here's the story as I remember it: Don said he bought a new plane (he still has 11) and a new car (he said he had 24 or more) after the war. He went to a broker/dealer somewhere out west. He bought a P-47 that was nearly new for $1300 (surplus). The story goes that he flew it around the airport and then landed. His buddy (forgot his name) was with him and bought THE AT-6. His buddy decided he didn't want the T-6 and traded it back even for a BT-13, which he thought would be a better instrument trainer for his school. However, Don's buddy asked Don what in the world he would do with a Thunderbolt? After much discussion, the fellow talked Don into trading his new Thunderbolt back in for the Texan. Which actually cost $400 more. The broker insisted that Don pay him an additional $300 and buy 2 parachutes ($50 for both to make up the difference in cost. )So Don owned a Thunderbolt for 20 minutes, then paid more for a Texan.
That Texan was hangared over by St. Louis and was paying some $65 a month to hangar it (and another $35 for his Stearman... another story altogether!) and was back living/working in SE Asia much of the time. Whenever he came back home to Illinois, he flew his planes down St. Louis way. He credited his friend and said the guy sure was right about the AT-6 being a real jewel. He said it would do 210, and it was just one of those planes that came off the line better than most if not all the others. Don credited his buddy for knowing his Texans, and well that guy should. The guy had spent over 4000 hours instructing in T-6s during the war, and had been in dozens of different Texans.
On one trip back from the Orient, Don met up with some of his flying buddies. Who were also his poker buddies. As luck would have it, Don had a bad day of cards and after all was said and done, turned out he was down $1700. Don started writing a check for the loses, and his buddy said NO, I don't want your money, I want your T-6! Don told the guy NO WAY. He had become partial to that AT-6 ( he never did call it a T-6 or a Texan, btw) and refused to sell it. His good friend kept telling him how little time he spent in the states (I think he was living in Tokyo at the time) and how much "storage" he was wasting on the plane. Don said NO. The guy kept after him, even saying that Don could buy it back from the guy (at some unset future date). NO. After some considerable jibbing (and probably some more Scotch) Don's buddy said," You're a gambling man, how about DOUBLE OR NOTHING?" Don finally acquiesced. On the cut, Bussart pulled a jack! His buddy groaned. Then he cut a king! I'm sure Don groaned and that point, and there went his wonderful AT-6.
The story doesn't end there. Some time after that, rumor has it Don won a Mosquito in another poker game. And then he raced "Wooden Wonder" in the 1949 Bendix race. He finished back in the pack on one engine. Later on, while he was back working in Asia, his wife (shortly after that EX wife) sold the Mosquito out from under him for $1000. He still laments losing those planes.
03/14/2009 (120.6): A nice morning flight to 4I7 for breakfast. Then a pass at Bussarts, but no one home. I had a passenger, Mike King, newly minted part owner of the Cherokee 6 hangared at HUF. 5 more hours and he can solo his bird!
03/04/2009 (119): Missing Man Tribute for our pilot friend and fellow EAA member Ernie Winters.
03/02/2009 (117.4): Logistics and practice flight for missing man flight later this week.
03/01/2009 (117.4): Finallized the condition inspection which began back in December. Very minor squawks, excellent compression. It will be good to start flying again after not being able to fly mostly due to foul weather since the end of November.
2009
11/1/08:
How
many November 1s in Indiana can you remember when the temps were over
70, the sky
was blue, and the winds were light and variable? Wow, this day was
special before even flying! If this is what Global Warming is all
about, I'll take it!3/5/2010: Right Wing Leading Edge and Wing Tip in progress:
After the left wing was all but done, we started working on the wrecked right wing that I bought from a fellow Rocket owner in Canada, who bought a wrecked airframe from a guy in Florida. I picked up the wing in Texas, and it now resides in Indiana. The outboard leading edge section and the wing tip needed replaced. Actually the wing came with a fiberglass tip in pretty good shape. I just didn't like it as much as the formed aluminum tip.
3/1/2010: Left Wing Leading Edge and Wing Tip replaced
The left wing leading edge outboard section is complete. The wing tip cap is ready to be put in service as well. There are a few rivets on the bottom outboard skin that need to be bucked, and some filler needs to be used to clean up the dings a bit and the wing tip machine holes need closed. Otherwise, the left wing is all but (re-)finished.
1/31/2010: HS "Service Bulletin"
First you make up some .040 stiffeners to fit between the stabilizer spars. Flute them to conform to the HS curvature (mostly toward the leading edge). Next time I do this, I would NOT pre-drill ALL the holes, just the center hole to locate the stiffeners, then drill the rest in place.
Then you drill out the aft spar from the HS to get access to the top and bottom skin. Much easier than drilling off the entire bottom skin. Here's my HS spar sitting on top of the HS, which is just sitting on top of the empennage deck.
I used GOOP adhesive (sticks like mad to aluminum) and bucked in NAS rivets 1 inch apart. In the picture, the spar is just resting between the skins. I wanted to make sure that I didn't have interference with the stiffeners being too long. Fits like a glove!
1/24/2010: Parts from HPA put to good use:
1/16/2010: Some pics of my progress.....
1/15/2010: Reconstruction Update:
I still have a long way to go, but it's coming together nicely.
12/2009: We gutted all the "good stuff out of my wrecked EVO fueselage and stood it in the corner. It stands up on the engine mount quite nicely.... even with the engine offset, which might be about 5°.
From OSH 2009:
November 2009: HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11/22/2009: I drove to Taylor Texas to attend the F1 Rocket gathering and pick up a replacement right wing.
After the left wing was all but done, we started working on the wrecked right wing that I bought from a fellow Rocket owner in Canada, who bought a wrecked airframe from a guy in Florida. I picked up the wing in Texas, and it now resides in Indiana. The outboard leading edge section and the wing tip needed replaced. Actually the wing came with a fiberglass tip in pretty good shape. I just didn't like it as much as the formed aluminum tip.
3/1/2010: Left Wing Leading Edge and Wing Tip replaced
The left wing leading edge outboard section is complete. The wing tip cap is ready to be put in service as well. There are a few rivets on the bottom outboard skin that need to be bucked, and some filler needs to be used to clean up the dings a bit and the wing tip machine holes need closed. Otherwise, the left wing is all but (re-)finished.
1/31/2010: HS "Service Bulletin"
First you make up some .040 stiffeners to fit between the stabilizer spars. Flute them to conform to the HS curvature (mostly toward the leading edge). Next time I do this, I would NOT pre-drill ALL the holes, just the center hole to locate the stiffeners, then drill the rest in place.
Then you drill out the aft spar from the HS to get access to the top and bottom skin. Much easier than drilling off the entire bottom skin. Here's my HS spar sitting on top of the HS, which is just sitting on top of the empennage deck.
I used GOOP adhesive (sticks like mad to aluminum) and bucked in NAS rivets 1 inch apart. In the picture, the spar is just resting between the skins. I wanted to make sure that I didn't have interference with the stiffeners being too long. Fits like a glove!
1/24/2010: Parts from HPA put to good use:
1/16/2010: Some pics of my progress.....
1/15/2010: Reconstruction Update:
The Rocket restoration is coming
along nicely. The tail is in completely re-aligned, "squared
up", and in it's final position. I was able to play with
the rod ends on the rudder and bring it in tighter, as well as clean up
the rough cut edges. It looks VERY nice now. I just got fresh epoxy to
finish the top caps and intersection fairing, so I may get those
glassed over the weekend. I cut down and repositioned the VS and
rudder caps, and they look much better. We changed the way all the
fiberglass parts attach, and they will come off
with #4 screws. The final effect of the cap contours is beautiful, much
better than my first time around. Also, on the elevators, I removed
Monty's caps and weights and put mine in. They look a ton better and
will require very little finish work.
I've been working a lot on the
canopy... a LOT! I
repositioned the track on the turtledeck, and it now screws down with
nutplates. That thing was about 1/2 inch off at the aft end, and now
it's lined up with the centerline and longitudinal axis. Also did a lot
of trimming on the plexi and the aft skirts to get it to close nicely.
Against some better judgement, I also took a torch to the
windshield bow and bent it to a much better shape. Now the canopy
closes with almost no gap and maybe only 1/16 difference in the level
of the windshield and the bubble. It looks good enough that I could
finish it without a fairing! Monty did a great job guessing the
contours of the glass. The SSW is longer than my original, and the
overall effect is gorgeous. The canopy lines from the SSW, across
the bubble and back across the skirts to the turtledeck is SWEET. Much
better than the first time around.
I completely remade the boot
cowl. It now has a couple extra screw holes in it, and it is wider to
fit against my old engine cowl better. The boot cowl is now split in
two and looks very clean and flat. In between patients today, I ground
out the cracks from the wreck in my engine lower cowling. I mixed up
some West System epoxy resin and cut at least two layers of BID cloth
per side. I'll have to completely remake the engine air intake
and air filter box, but that will come later. At least the two halves
of the engine cowl are ready to re-install as soon as the engine and
prop are re-installed.
We re-installed the wisker NAV antenna farther back under the empennage. I made a fairing/doubler/stone guard for it out of .032. I finally used that shrinker I bought 5 years ago. It looks pretty cool. We're going to try to split the two nav radios each to their own antenna. Jeff Tucker is going to experiment with making a 3/4 wave gamma matched antenna. Once again, we are going to try to use the gear legs for supporting, if not actually becoming, an antenna. Also, this time around, I relocated the two comm, the transponder and the marker beacon antennas forward of the wing spar. The comms may have some interferance, but the coax runs are going to be much shorter and easier. You will almost not see the antennas on the plane when looking at it on the ground.
We re-installed the wisker NAV antenna farther back under the empennage. I made a fairing/doubler/stone guard for it out of .032. I finally used that shrinker I bought 5 years ago. It looks pretty cool. We're going to try to split the two nav radios each to their own antenna. Jeff Tucker is going to experiment with making a 3/4 wave gamma matched antenna. Once again, we are going to try to use the gear legs for supporting, if not actually becoming, an antenna. Also, this time around, I relocated the two comm, the transponder and the marker beacon antennas forward of the wing spar. The comms may have some interferance, but the coax runs are going to be much shorter and easier. You will almost not see the antennas on the plane when looking at it on the ground.
The elevator push tubes are in,
and I like the settings. They'll probably come out, and the tail will
probably come off again more than once, but it's all about where it
needs to be. My rudder cables and my rear seat rudder pedals are
installed. I relocated the front cables through the bulkheads. I added
some nylon tubing inside the poly tubing where the rudder cables exit
the skin back at the tail.
We closed in the straight wing
flap drive arm holes Monty cut in the ship . Jeff Wellum did a great
job riveting those close outs in place. The EVO flap tube and
drive system are re-installed, the flap mechanism is essentially
finished.
The doublers for the EVO wing
attach angles and the hole close outs are ready to install. I have to
get the wings in before I can finalize the EVO wing attach bracket
doublers.
John Watler made a stainless
heat box cover plate and John Van Etten installed the heat box on the
firewall. JVE also located the push pull cable and it's ready to be
drilled though the instrument panel bulkhead. Like almost everything
else, it's going right back where it was.
My wing parts from HPA outside
Prague will be enroute next week and should arrive in Indianapolis on
January 20th. My new MT propeller, the exact model I had the first time
around, is actually in the air right now and should be in Indy
today! I hope to pick up both shipments at the end of next week,
certainly before the end of the month.
I still have a long way to go, but it's coming together nicely.
12/2009: We gutted all the "good stuff out of my wrecked EVO fueselage and stood it in the corner. It stands up on the engine mount quite nicely.... even with the engine offset, which might be about 5°.
From OSH 2009:
November 2009: HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11/22/2009: I drove to Taylor Texas to attend the F1 Rocket gathering and pick up a replacement right wing.
N540MT totalled in a forced landing 6/12/09
06//12/2009 ( approx.149.5): Regrettably, my Rocket had an oil line failure that resulted in total loss of engine power. I made a forced landing in a tall grass field near Mitchell, Indiana. On the roll out after touch down, the mains dug into very wet clay and my Rocket tipped up on it's nose, skidding nose down and then flipping over on it's back to rather violent stop. Both my passenger and I were treated and released from hospital with relatvely minor injuries. 540MT sustained substantial damage and undoubtedly will be totaled.
You can see where I crawled out from under. The plane was actually sinking as I was laying with my body still strapped in, and my head out the side of the plane, more or less resting on the ground. This pic is 24 hours laster and you can see the plane has sunk another inch or so. Sheesh it's seriously swampy there.
On Sunday after the accident, I got a call from the FAA telling me that my ELT was still going off. I had been called at the University of Louisville Trauma Center twice, before I had even been treated for my injuries. I told them how to get to the ELT, but they couldn't get access... and you can see why in the picture above. The ELT is behind the passeger seat, under the hat rack panel. And the remove switch up front on the panel would not shut it off. So they finally were able to find the antenna BNC behind the seat back and disconnect that. The signal was attenuated, but evidently still being picked up and reported by several parties.
I was told that it was my responsibility to shut off the ELT and asked if I had done that when I went back to the ship the next day. Of course I had not. Well, I HAD to shut it off. So in a frantic fray my restful, peaceful Sunday afternoon turned into a mad dash to figure out how to get to the ELT and shut it off. The only choice I had was to go down there and with a borrowed cordless drill and cordless sawsall, cut a hole in the side and reach in and shut it off. Fortunately my friend Jeff Tucker not only had access to the sawsall, but kindly drove me all the way down and back and assisted with the cutting and extrication. Sure enough, when we were near the plane (within about100 yards), you could barely hear the signal. I decided to not only shut off the ELT, I just removed it.
06//07/2009 (148.7): SOB and I flew to MQJ for the last day of the Indy show. This time, it was up over IND and direct into the downwind for a pass and landing on 25. SWEET!
Crappy phone pics:
06/06/2009 (147.7): SOB and I flew to MQJ for the big Saturday version of the Indy Air Show.
06/05/2009 (146.7): Flew to LAF for a static/transponder check. Josh was great to work with. After the avionics exercise was over, I flew down to MQJ to start working as a Ramp Rat for the Indy Air Show. The show has started and the airspace was closed by the time I got there. However, after loitering about 30 minutes, I finally caught a break and called the Air Boss. Ralph Royce was kind enough to clear me in for a landing, just before the A-10 demo made his run in. Sweet! I got to see some of the show from the air, about 10 miles out, then inbound. Lot of extra gas burning, but I had fun.
05/31/2009 (145.1): Don't remember where I flew this day. I think I was out somewhere testing my ignition. I think I finally nailed the problem down to a right angle BNC connector between the controller and the left B coil. The Radio Shack replacement I put in lasted about 1.5 hours. I need to order milspec or commercial grade BNC connectors. Maybe I can find them on the Mouser.com website.
05/24/2009 (144.5): Jerry Badger showed up Sunday AM just as I was putting the Rocket back together again. He was going to Rough River. He graciously waited for me to finish buttoning up and we flew all the way down to 2I3 at 7500 feet without a hitch. Had a nice 40 knot push. Bad part was that we missed breakfast and they were close in between breakfast and lunch for 1.5 hours. Duh. The other bad part was some completely inconsiderate dumbass departed opposite direction as we were turning base to land. Completely ignored our calls. Even made the Mooney that arrived ahead of us go into the grass so he could back taxi to take off. Some people just should NOT be allowed to fly. It seems every time I go to RR, there's one or two idiots making it unpleasant if not dangerous to go there.
So we departed back toward Indiana. We decided to go to 4I7 for lunch. Expecting heavy headwinds, we decided to return at 4.5K . Turned out to be quite comfortable (although a little bumpy) and only 6 knot headwinds. Lunch was fine, and Jerry and I parted ways.
While I was taxiing in, my phone rang. I answered while still on the runway (no traffic in or outbound of course). Bill Werth was flying over at 2R2. I decided to go over and get some gas. I ended up flying a little formation with him and his passenger Ben, another Chitaqua pilot. After that, I gassed up again and headed for home.
When I got home, I pulled out the bondo and my dremel and started working on fiberglass. I decided my windshield fairing was too wide (obstructed my view), so I cut 5/8 inch off of it at the trailing edge. I filled a few imperfections and let it sit. I'll go back and work on it some more this week.
05/30/2009 (142.1): John Watler and I departed toward Cleveland to see the USS COD. Got as far as the TTH VOR and aborted. Checked the ignition, found a loose BNC connector. Buttoned up, mag check OK, departed for KBKL, got to about Brazil, aborted again. Got on the ground. Igntion check, found one of the quick connects with the spade inserted between the plastic cover and the female terminal. Ooops. Changed the oil with 8 quarts of Phillips XC 20W50 (140.5) . Mag check OK. Departed for MTO for breakfast. No problems. Mag check on the ground at MTO, crap. RTB. Opened up, no problems. Closed up, mag check OK, departed back to MTO for lunch (with Mike King and Chat Chatergy in tow ala Cherokee 6). Mag check at MTO OK. Did a pass at Bussart's. Don waved heartily. RTB, checked the left ignition. CRAP. Ok, John and I got out the OHM meter again and went to town. I was suspicious about the right angle BNC connectors. Sure enough, wiggling the 90 degree BNC that was on the top B contoller lead showed an internittant open. A quick trip to Radio Shack to get a replacement (and an spare) hopefully resolved the issue. Hopefully....
05/29/2009 (140.3): Test flew the plane after checking the ignition again. "Mag Checks" OK. Got in the air, started running rough (just a weee bit). RTB. Checked again. Nothing.
05/26/2009 (....): I didn't fly, but worked on the plane this evening instead. Today, I installed two red LED lights to warn me should one side of the ignition fail. I ran 22 guage wires from pin 14 on each ignition controller to behind and above the backs of the top EFIS screen. I drilled two holes on either side of my N number and callsign placard. I put one of the LED lights in each .250 and then crimped the opposite polarity wires together. The lights will work oppositely... if one ignition controller fails, theoretically it goes to ground. That completes the circuit (+5 volts from the good controller to the LED) and the LED lights up. Simple and ingenious. With the two LEDs directly in my line of site, just above the top EFIS screen, I should have ample warning if half of my ignition goes south.
05/24/2009 (139.7): I flew to MTO for the ILS 29 again to confirm my autopilot and EFIS problems. Also wanted breakfast. The ramp and parking lot were packed with Corvette enthusiasts, so I didn't stop in. I confirmed that my EFIS would capture the ILS, but the AP is still flagged and will not follow down the glideslope. Also, without GPSS, the AP in heading mode blows through headings by over 10 degrees, then wants to S turn badly back on course. GPSS is dead nuts on laterally, but nothing else seems to be working properly. The AP is still letting the plane dive at 1000FPM in turns, even with the suggested static lag set at 2.
Later that afternoon, I metal prepped the fuselage and alodined the skin. Man, the plane was homely before, now it's down right ugly. But all that surface chaulking should be slowed to a crawl. Time to get serious about paint. Well, get serious about primer, anyway.
05/23/2009 (138.9): I met with Jim Winings and Paul Siegel this AM at Putnam County. Originally I was going to follow Comanche Bill up to Poplar Grove to get the layout of their airshow, which overlaps the Indy show. As I was cleaning my windscreen, Jim called and said he was meeting Paul at 4I7, so I headed toward 2R2. Jim and Paul discussed a new round inlet for the Rocket, and Paul was interested in all the extra speed and manifold pressure he could get. It was a nice Rocket discussion and information sharing session. Paul had a nice new Garmin 696 in his gorgeour EVO. Most impressive.
05/18/2009 (137.9): I got off work and bolted to the airport. Went through the entire troubleshooting flowchart from LSE's website. Nothing. What the heck. Buttoned it back up, rolled out and started up. Nothing. As in nothing WRONG. So I either have and intermittent problem, or the plugs were just fouled. Personally, I think I may have an intermittent problem. So, after doing a little reasearch, I found others with similar (but not exactly the same) issues. And as of this past February, LSE has put up a new dual electronic ignition FAILURE WARNING LIGHT diagram. So I'm going to wire in two superbrite LEDs that will illuminate when one of the ignition computer controllers failes. If my engine goes all wonky... or even if it doesn't, and one of the ignitions has failed, I'll get a visual warning. Which I plan to put at the top of the instrument panel, smack dab in the middle. If one side of the electronic ignition shuts down, it's VERY possible that in cruise it could be a barely perceptible change in the engine. The ignitions just run that good. I ordered two LED lights per the installation manual and waiting for Mauser to get them to me.
The flight was nice, but unproductive. The autopilot still failed to follow down the glideslope. Also, it was somewhat blustery, and the AP was pitching up a lot, and still falling down on turns. TruTrak emailed me back promptly and told me to set the static lag at 2. They had no idea what was wrong with the vertical steering... operator error or EFIS issue...
05/17/2009 (137.0) (.5 Comanche 250): Today I made a trip to MTO to test my refined autopilot/EFIS/480 combination. Everything works beautifully, except still haven't figured out how to get the system to drive the plane down a glideslope or step down on a GPS approach. I think the problem now is my learning curve. Not having used the IFR end of the GRT EFIS system, I'm not sure how those guys think. Seems that how the system operates is a little clunky. The big thing is that there is an "auto" soft key that really isn't automatic at all. Anyway, I finally figured out what I THINK I'm setting up wrong...
And the plane broke....
I didn't do a "mag check" at MTO when I departed. But Sunday evening when I was getting ready to go out and do another ILS test, I did do a " mag check" (I actually don't have mags, I have dual ignition... it's just easier to say mag check) and the engine felt like it was coming unhinged. Abort. The engine runs fine on one igntion, but the other sounds like it's only running on 4 (or 5) cylinders. Consensus is that I probably have an electronic ignition coil that has gone Tango Uniform. So we started doing diagnostics after I went flying with Comanche Bill. I got to crank and bank in the Comanche, that was a blast. She's a sweet ride!
I ordered a couple spare coils from LightSpeed just in case, and now I have to do more diagnostics.
05/15/2009 (136.0): A quicky flight that didn't amount to much. A low pass at PRG, Heavy cross winds and gusting badly. yuck.
05/14/2009 (135.6): After re-checking/re-vamping the autopilot to EIS to GNS480 wiring, and repairing one bad connection, John Watler and I did a nice run to test the autopilot and EFIS features. Wow, what a difference! The EFIS can now control the AP using data from the 480 to do vertical guidance. I don't know how to fully use the "Flight Director", but I'm quite impressed with the increase in capabilities. Two GPS approach passes at KPRG using the autopilot. The ground track and altitude hold were perfect. The EFIS didn't tell the AP how to step down, though, which was a setup problem on my part. I need to formulate a check list.
John flew two passes at Bussart's (from the back of course), and then flew back to base all the way to the numbers. I was a gloriously calm night, and I should have just let him land it from back there. It was dusk and smooth as glass. The view to the west from Paris airport was memorable. With over 10 inches of rain in the last couple weeks, there was standing water that looked like lakes or ponds in EVERY farm field as far as you could see. It's going to be a lousy season for farmers. Here it is mid May and the ground is so soaked, no crops are getting planted. Those already planted are probably lost. Not a good season for landing on grass stips so far, either.
05/11/2009 (134.6): Another quick run to Paris and three passes at Don Bussart's to test the autopilot. It's not working properly, but it is better than before. The updates of the EFIS software have helped, now it's time to tear into the wiring and reconfigure and add wires to increase the AP/EFIS/480 communication up to it's full and proper capabilities.
05/10/2009 (134.1): When I got back to Brazil, I had a message from Chat that Pat Adams needed a ride back from Boonville, IN. He was returning a beautiful Pacer to it's owner after annual. So I followed him down in the Rocket and rode him back. ITMT, it was a good opportunity for me to check out my autopilot. Friday I had been on the phone with GRT about reconfiguring my EFIS to get the 480/EFIS/VSGV combo working together. I had it all screwed up. And there have been software changes, as well as wiring changes (which will be the next project). I toggled my AP switch from 480 to EFIS and let the AP fly a flight plan and an approach after dropping Pat back at Clay County. The AP did everything it was supposed to EXCEPT follow DOWN the glidepath. I may not have pressed the right button.
Pat didn't get any stick time. Neither of us had a headset for him for the trip back, and I didn't want to have to turn around and yell any. I offered to get back together with him and get him some Rocket time. He was impressed enough to stand by the runway at Brazil and take a YouTube video of my take off.
05/10/2009 (....)(2.0 Cessna 172): Finally got to ride some more. John Watler took me along on a trip to pick up BIlly Werth and take him down to North Vernon to get the Pitts back. John was itching to fly, so I let him take Billy instead of a Rocket trip. It was nice to sit back and watch him operate the 530 and 430 connected to the STEC autopilot. It was a nice morning to fly, and a very comfortable trip. We did a pass at BMG to see if there were any hangar doors open down there, but since it was Mother's Day, it was a bit quiet most places.
05/04/2009 (132.2): Today I was on a mission to get Billy Werth back from North Vernon to have some cosmetic work done on his Pitts. Always fun to fly with Billy in formation. He frequently "checks the inverted oil system". His motto... "I'd rather be flying upside down" is VERY true. Check out Billy's air show schedule at GRAYOUT.COM !
05/03/2009 (....)(1.0 in Mooney 252): Had fun riding along with Jerry Badger in his twin turbo Mooney. He did three practice approaches and a hold with me as safety pilot. It turned out to be another gorgeous day, much to the chagrin of the forecasters. The Mooney is a nice ride and Jerry is most proficient at managing his systems. I hope to some day get my skills up to that level.... once I get the autopilot and EFIS bugs worked out. Those bugs seem to be multiplying....
05/02/2009 (130.1): John Watler and I flew the Rocket to KDEC for lunch. Good food and easy controllers. Can't beat it. Lots of standing water in the fields of Illinois due to the massive rains we've had for about a week. Gonna be muddy for a long while.
04/26/2009 (....)(1.1 in a PA24-250): Rode with Comanche Bill over to KMQJ for a Ramp Rats meeting. Boy, that Comanche 250 sure is a sweet bird!
04/26/2009 (127.8): Lynn Van Etten was my passenger on this very gusty April day. Her husband rode with SOB, and we all flew to French Lick for brunch and a quick peek at the casino. Despite the forecasts, it was very smooth above 3000 ft through into the afternoon. However down low caused me to execute, albeit successfully, the worst landing EVER in my Rocket. The tail "fell out" three times in the flair due to the winds on the bluff and over the trees. Wicked!
04/25/2009 (125.2): Puttered around flying to Greencastle for brunch and here and there. EFIS/AP/480 still don't like each other.
04/18/2009 (123.2): More senseless flying. Attempted to get the AP to fly some approaches. It doesn't work consistantly. I think I have major configuration problems in the EFIS setup. Looks like there might be some wiring changes on new installation manuals available at GRT. Gotta pull the boot cowl panels soon and trace some wires.
03/20/2009 (121.2): This has very little to do with my flying. Stand by.....
Drove up to Crawfordsville Municipal Airport at the request of Billy Werth. Why?
Huh? What's so great about a school bus?
Hey, there's no engine under that hood. Don't ask ME to push!
Oh look, Skip Stewart is here with Promethius. Wow, he sure is an amazing stunt pilot.
Wait, they've hooked the bus up to a tow strap and are taking it away..... What the......
Oh I see, this is not your ordinary school bus...
Uh, OK, looking at the back of the bus, I see that it has an ingenious propulsion system. Looks pretty.... HOT!!!!!
Paul Stender of Brownsburg, IN has a lot of experience in the jet vehicle genre. The SCHOOL TIME bus is the latest projet. Powered by a 42000 horsepower F4 Phantom J-79 engine, Paul's bus may be the largest jet powered vehicle in the world. It sure was a blast watching him blow Skip Stewart's doors going down the runway!
Thanks to John Watler for his movie file, which I uploaded to YouTube and the jpegs from our outing to Crawfordsville, IN..
Stay tuned, you can see the whole thing in HD on the Discovery Channel, fall 2009.
03/15/2009 (121.2): A nice March day to sweep out the hangar. Got rid of some stanchions we made for Victory Days, swept the floor, dumped trash. You know, Spring Cleaning kinda stuff.
At the end of the afternoon, SOB called and wanted to go fly. Then EVERYONE showed up out at the T hangars. Three of us, Rocket, Comanche Bill and Nail32 in his Comanche flew west into Illinois. Don Bussart was expecting us! Don's strip, in Dudley ILL, was soft. I thought my tailwheel was trenching down the runway! But it was fine. No problem slowing, that's for sure. And departure was fine. Glad I have excess power!
Sorry about the lousy phone pic...
Don was in great spirit, and Kako was friendly as ever. Bill, John and I had a nice chat with the Bussarts over a cup of tea. Nail32 (John Van Etten) swapped stories with Don. They had been close to the same areas in SE Asia, but during different wars. Van Etten was a FAQ in the early 1970s and later an F100 pilot in the ANG, and Don of course flew C47s for about 13000 hours during WWII. Of course that's just a small part of Don's logged 36000 hours of flight time. I swear, Don has more stories than any room full of pilots you can gather. Well, OK, maybe there's some others of Don's vintage that can rival him, but in his nearly 90 years, probably 75 of those flying, he sure has some dillys! One quick fact was that Don received the DFC for action in 1944, 1945. And even though he was never in the Air Force, he has an Air Force Honorable Discharge and all the benefits to go along with it. All well deserved.
Don mentioned that he once owned an AT-6. According to him, it wasn't JUST and AT-6 but it was THE AT-6. Not a prototype, but one of the first and original AT-6s available after the war. Here's the story as I remember it: Don said he bought a new plane (he still has 11) and a new car (he said he had 24 or more) after the war. He went to a broker/dealer somewhere out west. He bought a P-47 that was nearly new for $1300 (surplus). The story goes that he flew it around the airport and then landed. His buddy (forgot his name) was with him and bought THE AT-6. His buddy decided he didn't want the T-6 and traded it back even for a BT-13, which he thought would be a better instrument trainer for his school. However, Don's buddy asked Don what in the world he would do with a Thunderbolt? After much discussion, the fellow talked Don into trading his new Thunderbolt back in for the Texan. Which actually cost $400 more. The broker insisted that Don pay him an additional $300 and buy 2 parachutes ($50 for both to make up the difference in cost. )So Don owned a Thunderbolt for 20 minutes, then paid more for a Texan.
That Texan was hangared over by St. Louis and was paying some $65 a month to hangar it (and another $35 for his Stearman... another story altogether!) and was back living/working in SE Asia much of the time. Whenever he came back home to Illinois, he flew his planes down St. Louis way. He credited his friend and said the guy sure was right about the AT-6 being a real jewel. He said it would do 210, and it was just one of those planes that came off the line better than most if not all the others. Don credited his buddy for knowing his Texans, and well that guy should. The guy had spent over 4000 hours instructing in T-6s during the war, and had been in dozens of different Texans.
On one trip back from the Orient, Don met up with some of his flying buddies. Who were also his poker buddies. As luck would have it, Don had a bad day of cards and after all was said and done, turned out he was down $1700. Don started writing a check for the loses, and his buddy said NO, I don't want your money, I want your T-6! Don told the guy NO WAY. He had become partial to that AT-6 ( he never did call it a T-6 or a Texan, btw) and refused to sell it. His good friend kept telling him how little time he spent in the states (I think he was living in Tokyo at the time) and how much "storage" he was wasting on the plane. Don said NO. The guy kept after him, even saying that Don could buy it back from the guy (at some unset future date). NO. After some considerable jibbing (and probably some more Scotch) Don's buddy said," You're a gambling man, how about DOUBLE OR NOTHING?" Don finally acquiesced. On the cut, Bussart pulled a jack! His buddy groaned. Then he cut a king! I'm sure Don groaned and that point, and there went his wonderful AT-6.
The story doesn't end there. Some time after that, rumor has it Don won a Mosquito in another poker game. And then he raced "Wooden Wonder" in the 1949 Bendix race. He finished back in the pack on one engine. Later on, while he was back working in Asia, his wife (shortly after that EX wife) sold the Mosquito out from under him for $1000. He still laments losing those planes.
03/14/2009 (120.6): A nice morning flight to 4I7 for breakfast. Then a pass at Bussarts, but no one home. I had a passenger, Mike King, newly minted part owner of the Cherokee 6 hangared at HUF. 5 more hours and he can solo his bird!
03/04/2009 (119): Missing Man Tribute for our pilot friend and fellow EAA member Ernie Winters.
03/02/2009 (117.4): Logistics and practice flight for missing man flight later this week.
03/01/2009 (117.4): Finallized the condition inspection which began back in December. Very minor squawks, excellent compression. It will be good to start flying again after not being able to fly mostly due to foul weather since the end of November.
2009
11/29/2008:
Just
a quick run by a few of us over to MTO for late lunch. It was another
decent day to fly, so why not. Happy to report that my heating system
with the large AIRKITSLLC eyeball hooked onto it worked beautifully. In
fact I had to turn it away from blasting directly on me to keep from
burning. The picture above was snapped by a friend's daughter in the
back seat of a 172. I'm surprised the picture isn't blurry.
They
said they felt like the plane was going backwards when I went by. Heck
I wasn't going THAT fast!
Oh yeah, in the pic you can tell I moved my Position Light/Strobes to the middle of the wingtip and closed the holes. When I saw Mark's EVO in Taylor, he had them centered and it did look a lot better than at the leading edge. Forward visibility of the lights may be compromised a bit, but they are still within spec. Plane's not any faster, though.
11/28/2008: Had a nice flight up to Grissom AFB in Peru IN. The nice FBO line guy gave 4 of us (two planes of course) a ride to the museum. There was more to see in the museum than static hulks in the yard. Inside the museum there are many artifacts, models and activities. One interesting part is the F4 cockpit which is open for a pilot and rear seater to sit in. Really gives you an appreciation for the term "man on a missle". Two missles in this case.
11/21-23/08: Rocket Fly In, Taylor Texas. I had a nice long cross country down and back to Taylor, home of Team Rocket and Cheryl and Mark Fredericks. The flight down took about 4+ hours with two stops to buy "cheap" 100LL. Kennett MO (KTKX) had gas for $2.99. Then on to Wood County in Texas, where 100LL was $3.29. In my 15 years of GA flying, I don't remember 100LL being that low. Of course the world economy has gone to the dogs and auto gas is lower than it has been in a few years as well. Anyway, I flew the Rocket at 6500 feet in sunny skies with a slight push all the way down.
When I arrived at T74, Wayne Hadduth and his friend Ed had already arrived from Canada. Wayne turned out to be the only Rocket in the race and won his class at over 240 mph for the 120 mile loop. There were some 20 planes that showed up to race in the event on Saturday.
Regrettably, only 4 Rockets showed up. Mark had some 20 guys say they were going to be there, but certainly not enough planes. About 6 or 8 builders showed, and it was a pleasure meeting them and sharing notes. But it would have been great to see some more planes there for what was supposed to be a "Rocket" event as well as a racing event.
Cheryl and Mark were gracious and fun hosts. We not only got fed in a semi heated hangar (it was only 50 and blowing) but also got to visit Macho Grande. Cheryl's green Rocket (#158) with EVO wings and a Continental motor is going to be awesome. The fit and finish is superb and that huge stack coming out the side of that 330 hp Continental is very cool. Bet is sounds as good as it looks! Too bad my camera battery died, otherwise I'd have some pics.
Saturday after the race, nearly everyone bugged out. Weather was coming in and not many folks wanted to take a chance. I already paid for my room because I thought Saturday night was the big deal, not Friday. Well perhaps if weather wasn't looming more folks would have converged on Macho Grande.
Sunday AM I awoke to overcast skies and light rain. A check of the weather showed marginal conditions through Arkansas. I hopped in the Rocket and eased my way up to the NE corner of Texas at 2500 to 3500 feet. It was a pleasant trip, letting the autopilot do the work. I stopped at Wood County again for gas and was off again, That was the last I saw of the ground until I got to Missouri.
I thought I could make it over the "mountains" of Arkansas between layers, sort of VFR. I had an alternate plan to bug north into the flatter lands of OK, but headed into central Arkansas, cutting a swath from the SW corner to the NE corner. Man, it was ugly. It was getting hard to tell the horizon. Again, the autopilot was doing a fair job of keeping me straight, level and on course. But the layers started closing in. I was either going to have to turn north, 180 or climb. I saw a big hole and blue sky so I decided to climb. I knew it was clear on the other side of Arkansas, so I went on top.
At 9500 feet, I levelled out. I also turned on the oxygen. I was a bit anxious because I hadn't flown like this for about 5 or 6 years. Always nice to have blue sky over head, but not seeing the ground, is a bit disconcerting. Especially where there's no airports under you anyway for around 75 miles. It's interesting how sparse the airports are in west central Arkansas.
No sooner did I level out that I had to climb again. The cloud deck climbed to meet me, so I eased up to 11500. Then again, in about another 15 minutes, I had to climb to 13500. I've never flown my own aircraft that high. It's a bit ominous knowing you are that high. But with the oxygen blaring, some frequent sips of water and radios to play with, it was fine. The Rocket sure didn't care. I wasn't even at full throttle, and still climbing at 500 fpm. In cruise I was indicating 154 knots, but my ground speed was 200 knots. I was unfortunately burning 12 or so gph. I evidently have some induction and speed issues, so my plane needs tweeked to get the fuel flow to lean better, and perhaps straighten/smooth out some airframe issues. But I was pleased with the 200 knots across the ground and had plenty of gas to get all the way home if necessary.
Slowly the cloud deck underneath descended. I decided to stay at 13.5K. As I got within 50 miles of my destination, I could see that perhaps the clouds began to part at the horizon. At about 30 miles out I could see breaks in the clouds and some terra firma was apparent. I began to descend. When I noticed my airspeed was over 220 knots over the ground, I decided to throttle back. Good thing I did, because when I finally got to the gap in the clouds, I was still over 4000 feet AGL and Kennett airport was directly below me! No problem. Nice wing over and a couple turns down for a landing on 20. Ah, it was great to be on the ground. And buy some cheap gas.
I could have gone direct and finished the last leg of the flight with more than 45 minutes of fuel to spare. But I was stressed and nature was calling. I was happy that on both legs I took on less gas than my fuel flow indicated. Not enough to warrant re-calibration. Some guys want it exact. I'll live with the psychological advantage of knowing there's slightly more gas than the meter shows.
30 miles out of Kennett, the clouds completely disappeared. I had about a 10 - 15 knot push the rest of the way home. I played with the mixture soon as I got passed Sikeston MO, home of the "throwed rolls". I diverted a bit to see if Jim Winings and Wayne Haduth might still be there. But they were gone, so I soldiered on to KHUF. On that leg, for a while I was able to get the plane running smoothly at 50 degrees lean of peak with no stumbling. I know you really aren't supposed to do that down low, but I was testing the engine out a bit. I was below 10 gph at about 170 knots. I still think my EVO should be faster on less fuel, but I also need to figure out why I have a stumble when way rich of peak. That's probably my next project. Besides fixing my dead lower EFIS screen and my looming first condition inspection.
Oh yeah, in the pic you can tell I moved my Position Light/Strobes to the middle of the wingtip and closed the holes. When I saw Mark's EVO in Taylor, he had them centered and it did look a lot better than at the leading edge. Forward visibility of the lights may be compromised a bit, but they are still within spec. Plane's not any faster, though.
11/28/2008: Had a nice flight up to Grissom AFB in Peru IN. The nice FBO line guy gave 4 of us (two planes of course) a ride to the museum. There was more to see in the museum than static hulks in the yard. Inside the museum there are many artifacts, models and activities. One interesting part is the F4 cockpit which is open for a pilot and rear seater to sit in. Really gives you an appreciation for the term "man on a missle". Two missles in this case.
11/21-23/08: Rocket Fly In, Taylor Texas. I had a nice long cross country down and back to Taylor, home of Team Rocket and Cheryl and Mark Fredericks. The flight down took about 4+ hours with two stops to buy "cheap" 100LL. Kennett MO (KTKX) had gas for $2.99. Then on to Wood County in Texas, where 100LL was $3.29. In my 15 years of GA flying, I don't remember 100LL being that low. Of course the world economy has gone to the dogs and auto gas is lower than it has been in a few years as well. Anyway, I flew the Rocket at 6500 feet in sunny skies with a slight push all the way down.
When I arrived at T74, Wayne Hadduth and his friend Ed had already arrived from Canada. Wayne turned out to be the only Rocket in the race and won his class at over 240 mph for the 120 mile loop. There were some 20 planes that showed up to race in the event on Saturday.
Regrettably, only 4 Rockets showed up. Mark had some 20 guys say they were going to be there, but certainly not enough planes. About 6 or 8 builders showed, and it was a pleasure meeting them and sharing notes. But it would have been great to see some more planes there for what was supposed to be a "Rocket" event as well as a racing event.
Cheryl and Mark were gracious and fun hosts. We not only got fed in a semi heated hangar (it was only 50 and blowing) but also got to visit Macho Grande. Cheryl's green Rocket (#158) with EVO wings and a Continental motor is going to be awesome. The fit and finish is superb and that huge stack coming out the side of that 330 hp Continental is very cool. Bet is sounds as good as it looks! Too bad my camera battery died, otherwise I'd have some pics.
Saturday after the race, nearly everyone bugged out. Weather was coming in and not many folks wanted to take a chance. I already paid for my room because I thought Saturday night was the big deal, not Friday. Well perhaps if weather wasn't looming more folks would have converged on Macho Grande.
Sunday AM I awoke to overcast skies and light rain. A check of the weather showed marginal conditions through Arkansas. I hopped in the Rocket and eased my way up to the NE corner of Texas at 2500 to 3500 feet. It was a pleasant trip, letting the autopilot do the work. I stopped at Wood County again for gas and was off again, That was the last I saw of the ground until I got to Missouri.
I thought I could make it over the "mountains" of Arkansas between layers, sort of VFR. I had an alternate plan to bug north into the flatter lands of OK, but headed into central Arkansas, cutting a swath from the SW corner to the NE corner. Man, it was ugly. It was getting hard to tell the horizon. Again, the autopilot was doing a fair job of keeping me straight, level and on course. But the layers started closing in. I was either going to have to turn north, 180 or climb. I saw a big hole and blue sky so I decided to climb. I knew it was clear on the other side of Arkansas, so I went on top.
At 9500 feet, I levelled out. I also turned on the oxygen. I was a bit anxious because I hadn't flown like this for about 5 or 6 years. Always nice to have blue sky over head, but not seeing the ground, is a bit disconcerting. Especially where there's no airports under you anyway for around 75 miles. It's interesting how sparse the airports are in west central Arkansas.
No sooner did I level out that I had to climb again. The cloud deck climbed to meet me, so I eased up to 11500. Then again, in about another 15 minutes, I had to climb to 13500. I've never flown my own aircraft that high. It's a bit ominous knowing you are that high. But with the oxygen blaring, some frequent sips of water and radios to play with, it was fine. The Rocket sure didn't care. I wasn't even at full throttle, and still climbing at 500 fpm. In cruise I was indicating 154 knots, but my ground speed was 200 knots. I was unfortunately burning 12 or so gph. I evidently have some induction and speed issues, so my plane needs tweeked to get the fuel flow to lean better, and perhaps straighten/smooth out some airframe issues. But I was pleased with the 200 knots across the ground and had plenty of gas to get all the way home if necessary.
Slowly the cloud deck underneath descended. I decided to stay at 13.5K. As I got within 50 miles of my destination, I could see that perhaps the clouds began to part at the horizon. At about 30 miles out I could see breaks in the clouds and some terra firma was apparent. I began to descend. When I noticed my airspeed was over 220 knots over the ground, I decided to throttle back. Good thing I did, because when I finally got to the gap in the clouds, I was still over 4000 feet AGL and Kennett airport was directly below me! No problem. Nice wing over and a couple turns down for a landing on 20. Ah, it was great to be on the ground. And buy some cheap gas.
I could have gone direct and finished the last leg of the flight with more than 45 minutes of fuel to spare. But I was stressed and nature was calling. I was happy that on both legs I took on less gas than my fuel flow indicated. Not enough to warrant re-calibration. Some guys want it exact. I'll live with the psychological advantage of knowing there's slightly more gas than the meter shows.
30 miles out of Kennett, the clouds completely disappeared. I had about a 10 - 15 knot push the rest of the way home. I played with the mixture soon as I got passed Sikeston MO, home of the "throwed rolls". I diverted a bit to see if Jim Winings and Wayne Haduth might still be there. But they were gone, so I soldiered on to KHUF. On that leg, for a while I was able to get the plane running smoothly at 50 degrees lean of peak with no stumbling. I know you really aren't supposed to do that down low, but I was testing the engine out a bit. I was below 10 gph at about 170 knots. I still think my EVO should be faster on less fuel, but I also need to figure out why I have a stumble when way rich of peak. That's probably my next project. Besides fixing my dead lower EFIS screen and my looming first condition inspection.
First, 6 local EAA Chapter 83 planes flew from KHUF to Decatur IL for breakfast. Upon arrival there, Doug Claybrook said he saw a bunch of T6s over at Danville. So after breakfast, two of us went back to Danville to see what was up. There's quite a lot of warbird activity over there, with several "big birds" hidden in the hangars. Who knows what you might get to see if you get a chance to peak around. Well, there wasn't anything going on there by the time we arrived.
So what the heck.... As per usual when we're over that way, we buzzed over Don Bussart's strip near Paris, IL. WHOA! Looked like some activity there! So we stopped in. On the ground there ended up being like 18 planes, including ELEVEN TEXANS!
Turned out that half the T6 pilots were performers and pilots that came to Victory Days Terre Haute! Evidently they were out doing FAST training. What a treat! Of course it's always great to see Don and Kahko.
I was a little thrilled that many of the pilots wanted to check out my Rocket. Vlado Lenoch (of P-51 Moonbeam McSwine fame), who was there with his son in their T6, was particularly interested. They both tried it on for size. Regrettably it didn't fit Vlado very well due to my Rocket's "short guy configuration", but it seemed to fit his son pretty well. Vlado said it fit him about like his Pitts from long ago.
When I got back home, I took a little break, and later went back out for another hour. I let my autopilot TRY to do some IFR approaches. Definitely need to tweak those autopilot settings a bunch. Stopped in at 2R2 and said hi to Jim Winings, who was just rolling in aboard his friend's RV7A. I followed Jim back to Norm Patrums, then headed back to the barn just after sunset.
Ahhh... what a great day!!!
10/19/08: "The Century Mark" Today I broke 100 hours on the Rocket. A quick jaunt to 4I7 for breakfast, another quick jaunt to KSIV for our EAA Chapter 83 meeting, then a nice run down to KMVN for their "Little Egypt" veterans salute and fly in/air show. There were a few display civilian aircraft and a few warbirds. Greg Valero was there with his T6 and his son Brian. The "Israeli C47" flew a couple nice passes as did the other Petie 2nd, an L39, an L29 and a couple other aircraft. We got there just in time to see the planes fly. Evidently there wasn't much of a brief and the flying looked a little hap hazard. No planes got bent. Man, they must have flown a thousand Young Eagles down there that day, too. On the flight back, I was accompanied by Jeff Wellum, who flew from the back most of the way to SIV. He did a nice job, and took us all the way to final.
My tailwheel steering "broke" for the 5th time. That thing is a POS. I'm about to just put the factory steering springs/chains on and say the hell with it. That single arm on the Jantzi keeps bending. I'm on the second arm, and it seems that after just a few landings, I have to remove the thing and file the slot. I can;t figure out what's wrong with it, so I may just give up. I have another steering arm as a third spare. I may re-re-re-grind the pin and see if reshaping it won't resolve the issue. Sucks. Anyway, also wondering if I won't just have the same problem with ANY steering arm, single sided or dual.
The next day, I went out to update the software on my GRT EFIS. I worked on the steering arm and pin again. This time, I also re-contoured the socket. The floor of the slot on my socket has a big nick in it and I'm wondering if the pin isn't folding up and retracting because of that, getting out of sorts and bending the steering arm. Haven't had time for a test flight, but will get up perhaps this evening after work. Very frustrating. Good thing I'm well practiced at brake steering.
10/16/08: Curt DeBaun Jr.'s funeral was today. 5 pilots were honored to give Curt a send off he would appreciate. Wayne Sanders flew Curt and his wife Betty's 172 in a solo flight over the service. Four other private civilian aircraft did a missing man flight, and I was privileged to do the pull up and gone west in my rocket. Mother Nature was kind to Curt and provided me with a 3K foot broken layer to pierce as I climbed at max power up and away. Curt would have loved it.
10/14/08: I learned today that Curt DeBaun passed away on Sunday. Curt was a great guy. He's the pilot who took me for my first Champ ride, and broke me into the world of tail wheel aircraft. That was a fun first ride. Nice warm sunny summer day with the door off the Champ. I asked Curt how he landed the tw airplane. He said he pulled the power when over the numbers, closed his eyes (only had one good one anyway), pulled back on the stick, and counted to 5. If the plane hadn't landed yet, he went around and tried again! Curt had bunches of stories and was always fun to be around. We'll all miss him and his hangar flying. Blue Skies, Curt!
Last night SOB and I did a practice flight to form a missing man flight for Curt's services on Thursday. We made three practice passes to get our bearings, then departed to Brazil for some gas. I made a landing back at Hulman in some serious dark and low viz. It was fun. And now that HUF has 100LL about $2 more than anyone else in the area, I especially won't be buying gas at home.
10/13/08: I flew a little on Saturday past. I went to Ernie Winters, following Comanche Bill. Ernie and Linda wanted some aerial footage of Ernie flying his very nice Cessna 170. I rode copilot with Bill, as he flew formation and Tucker did some video shooting from the back seat.
I've made a bunch of little flights that didn't amount to much. Local stuff. Mostly, for that three week period coming up to the first weekend in October, I was getting ready for Victory Days at KHUF. The event was a success, if you don't count the lack of attendance. The Warbird participation was spectacular for a first event. The WWII reenactors were very cool as well. A platoon of MPs in period dress (guns and billy clubs too) helped us marshal the ramp. It was a stressful weekend for me as Ramp Boss for this first show. The event came off quite nicely, even though it was dismally disorganized and poorly marketed. But the planes and flying were great. And I hope we get to go it again.
The plane is flying quite nicely. I still have a bunch to finish. Now that winter is on it's way, I'll have some time to finish up some interior items, and perhaps make arrangements to get the airframe painted. That will probably be sometime this winter, and after my first condition inspection, coming up in December.
I did get Jim Winings on my policy so that he could take my plane out for a shake down. Jim's also going to go out with me and check me out doing some aerobatics. That should be fun. I'm pretty rusty, and all I do is a roll and a loop. KISS. Keep it simple and safe.
Hopefully more fun flying news to come as I reach the century mark!
10/3,4,5/08: Victory Days. I was Ramp Boss at the interactive WWII "living museum" held at Hulman Field in Terre Haute. The ramp and the flying (on Saturday) was awesome. I had a great crew, with a "Can Do" attitude.
One thing that's imperative after working a hard day on the ramp is drinking a nice cold BEER! We had this idea about getting some Warbird Mustang Gold Ale to share amongst ourselves and our new found flying buddies at Victory Days. Well, turned out that Warbird Gold Ale ("Mustang Ale") is kinda pricey around these parts. So SOB contacted Warbird beer directly (he's so shy....). Well, the owner finally got back to us and since he's "all about warbirds" he told us he'd make us a good deal. Not only that, he'd deliver it to us. Not only that, it'd come in a TBM AVENGER! All we had to do was unload it from the bomb bay, just like they did back in the day. So we all waited for Ida Red to arrive with a few scrumptious cases of Mustang Ale on board. SWEET!
Nothin' like some Warbird being delivered by... WARBIRD!!! WOOHOOO!!! Cheers! And thanks to Dave, owner of the Warbird Brewery, and restoration crew member of Ida Red. Small world, eh?
8/24/08: Flew a bit yesterday. Went to KSIV for their "Airport Days". Decided not to hang around. You know, when low time pilots are giving rides to kid, and they don't shut down the engines to change passengers, it makes me very nervous and I don't want to be around.
Friggen tailwheel steering arm went to shit again. All of two hours on it. Took it apart Sunday, cleaned it.. no soap. Took it apart again and found that it had folded over on one corner just like the first one did. Took a file to it, reshaped it, and it works. For now. Probably need to get a new pin for it. Sumpin ain't right.
Sunday AM flew to KMQJ for the Indianapolis Air Show. Paid my $20 to get in and spent the day there. Watched them marshal a few warbirds, watched Billy Werth fly his Pitts in the show, ate a Dove Bar, drank about 5 bottles of water (none of which I paid $3 for!). The usual. Spent a couple hours with Paul King, meeting various and sundry pilots and ex pilots, plane owners and warbird afficianados. Met Paul's son Jake over at the Indy Aero Club Museum, which is in a very nice hangar toward the back (north west) of the rows of buildings. All in all, it was a good day. I didn't learn much but I did see that the ramp rats over there do an excellent job, and I hope our crew fairs as well at Victory Days.
8/17/08: Got Night Current last night. I wouldn't call it "currency", but I did a bunch of stop and goes after sunset, before the full moon came up. I haven't flown at night for a couple years, and it was a little freaky. But most successful, and a very good experience. Yes, my Rocket actually can fly at night!
Also changed the oil for the second time. Yep, going 50 hours between changes now. Consumption is very low. Still have a slight leak up front. Think I need to take off the prop and change the front crank seal? Contacting Mattituck about it. Also figured out that my landing lights suck. Well, not completely. The landing light is straight ahead, but the taxi light needs to be out and forward a bit. One of these days, I'll remove the 70+ screws from the leading edge and adjust the lights. Need to replace the lens, too.
Tom Martin graciously pointed out at OSH that my exhaust hangars were causing my pipes to bang into the engine mount. Oops. I adjusted the hangars all the way to max length. Maybe that'll put a little less soot and oil on the belly, but I'm not holding my breath. Tom also told me a couple nylock nuts weren't showing one thread on my flap drive arms. I'm going to change those to smaller width all metal stop nuts next time I'm under the wing. Nice to have friends that take the time and trouble to look out for your bacon.
7/2808: OSHKOSH! After riding my FJR1300 1023 miles from Golden, Colorado the day before, I departed for OSH. Bright and early Monday AM, I headed for the airport, finished loading the Rocket and headed north. Low scud and thin areas of undercast were present until getting north of Chicago. Then it was nice and clear. The airwaves were relatively quiet, and I was expecting OSH to be empty (economy). I was wrong. I started the approach at Ripon doing 90 knots.... because I can! I caught up with the only other plane I saw on the way in, a Cessna SLOWhawk doing about 80 knots. Controllers warn not to S turn, and if you can't slow enough, break out and start over. Well, it was good practice for me to do some slow flight. Fortunately at Fiske, they peeled me off to 36L, so I nudged in the throttle. A nice descending left turn to final, a nice long float down the runway, planted the tailwheel and rolled off on a taxiway. I'M HERE!
Once on the ground, the ground controllers ushered me up the pike. At the main turn off north of show center, I asked a controller over to my cockpit. I told him I wasn't sure where the best place for me to park would be. I said I'm a warbird volunteer and camping there. He nodded, and told a scooter where to take me. Front row behind the forums. Row 319 is next to the main road through the whole event, and right next to warbird camping. Sweet! (got a little dirty, though).
It took me two hours to get away from my Rocket. People kept coming up and wanting to check it out and ask questions. I felt like a superstar. Anyway, one Rocketeer from the PNW reminded me of a Rocket Safety seminar under the trees just over in the forums. It was a nice little session, and I met several other owners and builders. Also, it was good to put faces with names I'd heard for years.
The rest of the afternoon, I tried to check in as a warbird volunteer. What a cluster fuck that was. I had to literally chase the volunteer director around the whole warbird area, and I never did catch him. I decided to wait until morning and pin him down first thing.
Vince Frazier had a little get together that evening. Once Jim Winings and I found the place, I sat down with a couple beers and listened to Lee Logan and Wolfgang Meyn have an "argument". It was a very pleasant discussion. I can listen to those jet jocks go all night. Alas, the mosquitoes were the worse I've ever seen anywhere, so I decided to bug out. I walked the two miles back to my tent with thunderstorms looming to the west. It started spitting rain just as I got back to my tent, but never did pour like I thought it would. In fact, that was the only rain we got the whole time I was there.
The next morning I caught up with Tom Wise, he OK'd me and sent me to John Gates. John insisted that Tom already told him NO MORE VOLUNTEERS. Here we go again. So I started chasing Tom down again. A little tough since he's all over the airport in a brown jeep and I'm on foot. I finally caught him, told him the dilemma, and he said he'd fix it. I started my way back to the volunteer trailer (Tom's) and told John again that I was already approved to volunteer two months ago. He asked me if I was sure and asked if I wasn't lying. I wanted to punch the guy, but I didn't even roll my eyes. I just said ABSOLUTELY NOT. Just then, Tom rolled up, said I was OK (John was already checking me in), and scurried off. That guy was never in the same place for 30 seconds.
Since Dave Thomas was kind enough to recommend SOB and me for the ramp, they stuck us in his group. Dave has been tugging JETS at OSH for about 20 years. Even though our emails to OSH told them we wanted big radial experience for Victory Days, everyone there was stuck on Dave's name and JETS. So I got put on the "point" with the jet crew. They were a bit incredulous because jets usually take the most seasoned of volunteers, most of whom had more than 10 years experience. Yikes! When I told them I had NO jet experience, no FBO experience and never used a tug, I was practically shunned. Oh well, I was there to learn and help, and I did.
Ryan and Ben Anderson were the youngest guys on the crew. They had both been at the show since BIRTH. Ben tugged his first 104 Starfighter at a rumored 14 years of age. Both of these guys were very nice and quite helpful in training me about tow bars and some movement protocol. Scott Baier is the jet LEAD and he coached me in safety and signals. He then promptly made sure I was the hell out of the way most of the rest of the time (during movements). I was a little disappointed not to get to marshal the smaller jets, but they were pretty self sufficient anyway.
What I really enjoyed was working with Dean Stanley. He bought Dave Thomas's 1940 tug and had it painted up in OD WWII livery. Dean is a volunteer sheet metal worker on Desert Rat, a B17 basket case being restored near Schaumburg. Dean is a super nice guy, and since he had the bigger tug, he was asked to move a LOT of planes. In fact, the jet tugs were asked to move just about everything that wasn't at show center. And even so, they took some of the planes back and forth to show center. So I got to help tug P38s, P51s, Yaks, and a Spitfire. And on the jet ramp, we had many L39s, a couple l29s, three T33s, a Hawker Hunter, a T2 Buckeye, and the only flying FJ-4B Fury ( Navy F-86 Sabre, more or less). It was ALL VERY cool. And I was able to help with the tow bars and chocks a lots.
During the show, the Warbirds fly first. So we start first. And we end first, if we don't get recruited to shuffle prop planes around afterwards. When there isn't an NDA established, the jet crew tugs the jets across the field on the far side of 27 for start. Watching the show from there is a blast, you're right under the end of 18, directly under the planes landing and passing. SWEET. Once the Raptors and Ospreys showed up, though, that area of the far ramp was closed to all civilians. The Raptors were even roped off over there and armed guards posted 24/7.
Wednesday is a Warbird day off. So the work was really thin. I had multiple blisters on my feet, so I wasn't in to walking a lot. I hung around and someone found tugging jobs to do here and there. It was nice to have an easy day. Thursday, things picked up again, and Friday was the big show. Saturday, things wound down and lot and the jets and lots of other warbirds start to go home.
Foraker finally showed up Thursday AM. I worked early in the AM. Then I hooked up with Bruce Dallman en route to meet Bill. Bruce came up from Kansas with a friend of his in a 182. That was the only time I saw Bruce, but Bill and I camped next to each other and worked the crew together. I took Bill to see John Gates to sign him up. John again said (and more emphatically) that he was told by TOM not to take any more volunteers. I'm thinking "Here we go again". I said Bill was also already on the list from two months ago and Tom had already approved him. John insisted that unless Tom brought a volunteer by the arm to sign up with permission, he was NOT going to take any more volunteers. Ugh. So SOB and I went to get a snack, then out to the ramp. Fortunately for Bill, he had an orange vest on hand, and put it on. Jet Lead asked who the heck he was, and we told Scott the story. He reluctantly nodded and went about his business. Later that afternoon, Bill pinned Tom down at his trailer and put his registration in motion. Sheeesh, it was more work trying to work than actually working!
Friday night, Dean and his wife and Dave and his wife hosted a steak cook out. We chipped in, and Stacy went and picked up a bunch of beer, fixens and some Brontosaurus steaks. Man, they were HUGE. And DEEElicious. The Leinenkugel was pretty tasty too. Just as we were finishing up, Jerry O'Neil called SOB. Jerry and his wife Ginny were working for the DAV. The DAV was sponsoring Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band. Jerry insisted we come to the show and he'd put us up front. So off we went. We got there for the final set, right up against the stage. And I'm here to tell you that they were ROCKIN'! Ben was with us, and he knew one of the singers. Man, she was good. AND HOT. After the encore, we went out back hoping to meet Gary Sinise. Well, that didn't happen, but Ben talked to Julie and got a great big hug. Lucky dog. Man, what a great day!
Bill decided he was leaving Saturday after the show instead of Sunday AM like I had planned. I was kinda tired of camping myself, so I started buttoning up Saturday AM and loading the plane for departure after the show. The jets were light and leaving, so after the Warbirds were over and the show started, Bill and I got an FAA briefing and headed opposite directions for our planes (Bill's Comanche was in row 88, in Contemporary Classics). Again, I was swamped by onlookers and questions. Then the jet crew rolled up in a van. I almost didn't recognize anyone without hats and orange flight line gear on. We again said goodbyes, and they were off to the warbird banquet.
Once I heard a plane start behind me, I excused myself from conversation and got in for start up. Soon as I did, an escort pulled up. I cranked up and slowly taxied off the grass to the main warbird taxiway. It wasn't 5 minutes and I was holding on runway 18R for departure. The controller exclaimed he was ground holding me for slower traffic ahead of me. I gave him a thumbs up and a great big head nod. And I was grinning from ear to ear. He was holding me up behind a twin and a V tail Bonanza. BIG GRIN!!!! "Rocket, cleared for take off. Be aware of slower traffic in front". Bigger Grin. I didn't hold anything back. Full throttle, tail up, ground effect and off like.... a ROCKET!
A couple miles out, I went passed the Bonanza like it was standing still. And I had throttled back to 23 squared (all the way home). Then I passed the twin and started climbing. The briefer was right, I had a 20 knot push at 6500 feet. Then, at the turn (Chicago B), I went up to 7500 and had a 32 knot push. SWEET! I was burning less that 13gph, truing at 198 knots and making 203 across the ground. I was in the pattern at Hulman in 1.5 hours to the minute. NICE! Bill, at this point was about 20 minutes behind me (due to delayed departure, not airspeed). So I decided to do a show pass while waiting. I went down the runway at some 190+ knots, then circled and landed. It was just before sunset. No sooner did I get packed and the plane put away, there goes SOB also doing a show pass. I knew he would. He was talking to tower from some 80 miles out, so he was listening all the time.
What a great two weeks of vacation. A beautiful week of motorcycling in the Colorado Rockies, then flying my Rocket to OSH for the first time, and volunteering for the first time at the show, meeting lots of great new friends and then a perfect flight home. Even the autopilot worked! Ahhhhhhh BLISS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7/07/2008: A nice flight today over to visit Billy Werth and his son Trevor. Also had a nice visit with Jim Winings, who is sold on his new round air inlet for the engine. He says he gets .5 inch of manifold increase and 2 more knots without that flat spot under the prop. I like the concept and may hack my spare inlet just for funsies. I'm not sure I need the manifold pressure increase, but less drag might do it. Jim said the filter area is almost double that of the square filter we now have, and that the airflow into the flow controller is more direct.
On a cooler note, I noticed my boot cowl and footwell areas were much cooler. John Watler and I insulated behind the rudder pedals and around the floor and right sidewall of the center bay in front of the stick bay. Wow, what a difference! John also installed a Y connector on my heat and fresh air on the left, then attached my eyeball vent as a test. I think putting the Y connector backwards didn't hurt anything, but the bug screen over the inlet and the eyeball vent really slow the flow and reduced the volume. I gotta get bigger aluminum eyeball vents. But using the air inlets in the wing roots and turning the NACA duct on the right boot cowl so that it just cooled behind the instrument panels made a HUGE difference!
7/05/08: Where has the time gone? Well I've made a couple un-notable test and food flights around the area. But today was a fun romp around Indiana. Watler and I flew up to Boone County 6I4 and met up with Jason Sharkey. Jason is the king pin of our newly adopted VICTORY DAYS event at KHUF. Jason is a big WWII enthusiast and decided to put together a tribute, remembrance and exhibit of life in and around an Army Air Corps base during the early 40s. So he and his team (and many of our Air Fair volunteers) are bringing military and civilian hardware to the KHUF grounds for display and reenactment. Anyway, we had a "warbird" meeting and then he was gracious enough to take John and I for L-5 Stinson flights. Now THERE is a sweet flying plane. Yep, I want one!
From Boone county, John and I started to fly to Grissom which is now open to the public (on one side there is an FBO). For some reason the tower was closed. I think that means it reverts to an uncontrolled field, but I wasn't going to take a chance, or bother Grissom approach about it. On to Converse, Indiana ... which has an unusual airport. During the war era, they decided to make an octagonal airport. Theoretically, you could land any direction. As it sits now, the airport is all hacked up and you are supposed to land on the indicated runway. No thanks.
The next stop was Monticello, White County. Billy Werth and his band of brothers were supposed to be there giving rides in his S2C. I guess we got there early. No Bravo Bravo in sight, so we departed for home.
The EVO flew nicely, I was able to lean it out quite a bit, but I think I need to remove the remaining .0275 injector and bump it back to .028. I get an occasional miss, and I'll just bet it's coming from that cylinder. Also, I had ducted both wing root air vents to eyeball vents. The amount of airflow through those little eyeballs just isn't going to cut it. At OSH, I'm going to buy a couple of the larger eyeballs and hack them into the front panel somehow. And Watler said I probably didn't need the other ventilator in the back seat. So I'm leaving that out for now.
6/16/08: Hacked the hole bigger in the leading edge of my right wing root fairing. Decided to double it's size, extending it UP from the LE midline. SUCCESS! Finally got a reasonable amount of air in the big 2 inch hole I punched in the right boot cowl. The hole in the glass is trapezoidal, so I'm going to round it out and try to make it sort of "LoPresti-esque". The good news is that closing out the box between the wing, the spars, and the boot cowl (using Great Stuff) actually works. I would imagine, however that using some vinyl flex duct in there will be a lot more efficient. SCAT doesn't make the bend well enough. Using a simple elbow and making the boot cowl hole directly west of an elbow might work, but there are two longerons down low in the boot cowl in that area, so mounting that hole up above a little is a good idea. I tried to stamp my 2 inch hole in the boot cowl as high as I could (with a Greenleaf punch), and still a 2 inch duct adapter will barely fit there because of the longeron. Oh, and since this is the flying page, I will report that I did two separate test circuits in 14G21 winds to test the fresh air hole. The Rocket did very well!
6/15/08: Flew 3 planes this weekend. My Rocket, a 1958 Comanche 250, and the EAA's 1929 Ford Tri-Motor. Yep. Got .3 hours of wheel time in that big beautiful air carrier. PIC was Rand Siegfried, a great guy with some mad flying skills. Also some vigorous testicular fortitude to allow ME to take the controls with 9 unaware warm bodies behind us. Actually it was easy in the air, but boy did it like to wallow. Different. But I could get VERY used to it. Thanks to the EAA for allowing Chapter 83 to host the Tri-Motor in Terre Haute for 4 days. Regrettably, the weather was pretty bad again for two of the days, but Sat and Sun were near perfect!
6/10/08: Went for some wing root vent test flights this evening. Decided to go to Shawnee Field near Bloomfield, Indiana. That field has already flooded once this year, and in fact has flooded into the hangars 3 time during the 15 or so years I've been a pilot. Fortunately, I'm high and dry, and so is my plane. But the good folks down at Shawnee aren't that lucky. These images are about 3 days following the 14 inches of rain our area received in less than a week. I think the water has receded at least two feet before John Watler (his pics) and I flew over in the EVO.
6/08/08: 3 turns around the patch at sunset. Brake held fine, GLF closure at the TE held fine. Duct to the heater valve on the firewall did not transfer any heat, so that's good. Unfortunately, opening the rear seat back and baggage floor closure did not allow any more airflow through the cabin. So I used to speed tape and Great Stuff to seal off the right wing root just in front of the flap mechanism. Now the wing root is a quasi sealed box. I used a step drill and put a 3/4 inch hole in the root LE. Next step is to test and see if the amount of air from the LE into the center stick bays is more than the air/exhaust that was coming into the stick bays from the opening at the aft end. Even if I don't charge the stick bays with fresh leading edge air, at least I will be a lot less likely to get carbon monoxide poisoning.
6/07/08: Jeff Tucker and I went out for a sweltering ride to look at the flood waters around the area. Wow, there's really some high water, with people boating to and from their houses. Cars underwater. Torrents ripping across fields into yards and basements. Glad my house and office are high and dry, but many were not so fortunate. It was almost 90 outside after the rains at the end of the day, and my OAT (which picks up some IAT) was showing 99. Whew, what a nasty greenhouse effect. Gotta work on some airflow. Also, had a brake line failure again that caused a mild ground loop again. Pedal went to the floor on a turn and the tail was too far gone to catch with the rudder pedal. Turned out that I used low pressure tubing on that last line replacement by accident. Replaced with Nylaflow (for certain) and bled the brakes. Found that where I had closed the right GLF, the TE opened back up and needed repaired. Poor workmanship on that one, too. Always something.
6/02/08: Played hooky from work this AM to hang around and fly with a PBS crew from Chicago. Evidently the Lehrer News Hour was doing a report on economic developement and air carrier usage at smaller airports. So the camera crew came out to interview the mayor, a board member, an airport administrator and no other than Chatter. SOB got to fly the interviewer, while Jim Fisher flew the camera man. Just for fun, Jerry Badger and I flew the Rocket in formation with the Comanche and the Skylane. It was a fun way to kill .5 hours.
6/01/08: Today was the annual Olney-Noble pancake breakfast. 5 planes from HUF, including Larry Richter in his vintage Bonanza, went and stuffed ourselves with cakes, snausages and b's&g's. The sky was beautiful and the air was silky smooth. The sun came out and I realized how much I need to improve the airflow inside the greenhouse. Man, at 85 the cabin was getting uncomfortable. And those radios get HOT. Especially that 480. Heck, I almost need to box the radios in, put a blower in there, and exhaust the heat directly overboard. HOT HOT HOT. No wonder guys fly these things up at 10K feet!
5/24/08: Took Michael King for a ride over to MTO, back to Brazil/Clay County and home again. He got some stick time between MTO and Brazil. Gas prices sure have shot up. I saved almost $1 a gallon buying at Brazil today, versus Hulman Field's tenant fuel price. I swear, that airport just does NOT want to bring in any transients. Anyway, it was a nice day of flying. Regrettably, the injector restrictors I inserted made the engine run poorly. I figured one cylinder was WAY too lean, so I chose #4, removed the .0275 restrictor and re-inserted the stock .0280 restrictor. A short leaning test the next day proved that #4 was the culprit, but it still wasn't quite right. Time to contact AirFlow Performance again and ask Don Riviera what to do. 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 morning, replete 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 strip 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 restrictors, based on my engine leaning data. Stock restrictors are .028 diameter openings. Two of my TMX-IO-540 cylinders need .0275 restrictors and two of them need .0285 restrictors. The AirFlow Performance restrictors 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 injectors 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 definitly 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 KSER 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 KSER. 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 KZPH, 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 KDCY 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 KBMG 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 in between 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 en route steering, I thought maybe the AP was getting overwhelmed with steering commands 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 (pulley) 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 (intermittent 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 I was able to get to the airport early enough to do a little autopilot test flight. Initially, the AP worked beautifully. It held altitude and course for about 5 minutes. Satisfied that everything was good, I started trying to get it to intercept a GPS course and track to a waypoint. Nope. Dunno what's still wrong (probably my own doing). One thing I noticed is that the AP head, when switched to the EFIS, would show the correct heading and stay locked on. Also, it would try to get the control system to steer the plane to the course. It seems the "C" servo (without the torque enhancer), still doesn't have enough "oomph" to push and pull the stick to turn the plane, even though the torque setting is set to max.
I know that the push rod from the servo is not trimmed so that the rod is perpendicular to the servo arm. My next course of action will be to trim the rod back. In the mean time, I'm going to also have to figure out what's wrong with the communication between all three units (AP, EFIS, 480). Very frustrating.
3/18/08: No flying again today. But last evening I ran out to the hangar and reinstalled my TruTrak VSGV autopilot head and "C" aileron servo. Also re-installed my good old wet compass in the panel directly above the AP head. When I got everything powered up, the stick moved beautifully with the DG knob on the AP. When my toggle was set to the EFIS, the heading on the AP stayed locked and worked as it should. With the toggle set to the 480, it still wanted to "wander", so there could still be a problem there... probably still a configuration conflict, if anything.
I took my tailwheel pivot apart again for the 8th or 9th time. It works well for a couple flights, then it wants to let loose on right turns. It unlocked and went full castor on me last Friday causing a little ground loop, so I'm very concerned about how well it stays locked to the one side. I took the spring/pin out and reshaped the head of the pin again. Smoothed it and tried to make sure that the right side was very well shaped and that everything was very clean. I hope that I can get that thing to be consistent for more than 5 or 6 landings!
Man, it sure is ugly today. Constant light drizzle, occasional thunder and soggy. Could be worse. If this was snow it would be a foot deep already. Since I have to work through the week anyway, it's not that big of a deal. I just hope it clears out by Friday so that I can finally fly outside my test box! Westward HO!
3/17/08: No flying today. Just happy to report that my TruTrak autopilot came back from Springdale already. The servo was repaired, and the VSGV head was updated. The problems I had in the beginning of my troubles with my AP was due to a configuration problem in the EFIS. Later on, the aileron "C" servo failed. Now that FEDEX brought them back to me (about 10 calendar day turn around, including shipping), I'll get them re-installed and tested. Now that my GNS 480 seems stable and properly working, can't wait to see how the 480 and the EFIS drive the autopilot.
3/16/08: END TEST PHASE 1.
Today was a marvelous day. Four separate flights beginning about 10 and ending just before sunset. 5.7 hours. Out early, warmed up the plane for a while. Went north first, toward the best weather. Marked Dave Wilson's strip in the 480. Then on to 4I7, and then I aborted going to 2R2 because of low ceilings, and back to TH. Next flight, I programmed a flight plan in the GNS 480 and headed out for a big loop within my test area. At home in TH, it was somewhat low broken clouds, but very nice viz. On south to KDCY, then BFR, then KBMG and up to 2R2 and back home again, it was nice, then low clouds and viz over between Bloomington and Hendricks county. But by the time I got out there it was marginal VFR or better. This time I was leaning back the motor, going slow (about 145 knots) and trying to "burn time". Third flight (after a quick lunch), I flipped the route, and went along the same flight plan, but in reverse order. When I got back to my hangar, I was a little worn out, so I took some time to walk around, then relax. I didn't fuel up this time when I came back, and after about 30 minutes, I decided to go to Bloomington to buy some cheap gas. Of course I didn't go direct, I went over to Greencastle, then down.
After fueling, I realized that by the time I got back to HUF, I would be only about .7 hours short of the magical 40 hours that gets me out of the mandatory test time in Phase 1 restrictions. What the heck, no one was on approach, and no one was on tower. It was a beautiful day and no one was at the airport. Between St. Patrick's Day and ISU being on Spring Break, I had the airport all to myself. So for the last 1/2 hour, I just did bomber sized slow patterns, throttling back to around 7 - 12 gph. Well, except for the next to the last pass. I flew that one at 25 squared and was doing a stabilized 198knots at 600 ft AGL! WOOHOO!
And I ended the day with exactly 40.0 showing on the "Hobbes" (or Hobbs Meter, if you aren't a Calvin and Hobbes fan...)! On to Test Phase II, which essentially means I can fly away from my test box without the initial test phase restrictions. Time to plan that trip to Sun N Fun!
3/15/08: People keep asking me if I have finished my plane. My typical response is: "The plane will be finished when I sell it!" That is to infer that as long as I own my Rocket, I will ALWAYS be trying to finish it. Today was no exception. Forecast for lousy rainy/snowy weather all day. It was wrong. The sky almost broke open to blue, but man, was it blustery. As I type this, I'm sitting at home trying to decide whether to run out just before sunset when the winds die down to burn an hour. Well, tomorrow is supposed to be cold but nice all day for flying, so I think I'll just stay home.
When I got to the hangar today, I removed, trimmed, scuff sanded and primed all the gear leg fairings and wheel pants. After they dried for a couple hours (rattle bomb sandable primer sets up pretty quickly), I reinstalled them and taped them. I just wanted to get some paint on them before the trip to Florida for Sun N Fun.
3/14/08: Finally a better than forecast afternoon. 57 and somewhat sunny. Unfortunately, there was a low cloud deck until it was time to button up, so no rate of climb stuff today. However, I did solve my ILS cross hair flashing problem all on my own. Stupid configuration problem. Now it works great. Did two ILSs and used the 480 for some terminal and en route navigation. Pretty cool, actually.
Did my first ground loop today. That sucked. No damage, only a 270 turn when my tailwheel again unlocked into free castering. I tried to catch the plane turning right with the brake, but it was too little, too late. Oh well, the tower controllers thought it was pretty cool. Just remembered to keep that stick back and let it swing. Definitely need lots of work on my 3 pointers under 70 knots.... too bouncy. After bouncing two landings in a row, I figured after some 3.2 hours today of flying after work, I was just toast and better not even bother doing more pattern/landing work. But overall it was a great day, and I felt good about the accomplishments en route.
3/13/08: No flying today (not yet anyway). Word from Marcus at TT sez my AP servo was toast, but there was nothing wrong with the AP. He said my magnetic calibration was way off and that when it comes back (upgraded software and setup for a Rocket) not to re-calibrate the head. Cool. Also, noted to GRT that my ILS on the 480 actually worked after I reconfigured it a little. They said I still probably didn't have it set up correctly and to call them from the plane and they'd go through it with me over the phone. I'm going to do exactly that tomorrow. Wonder if I'll get a tracking number from TT? Wanna get all this stuff squared away before I blast off south for SNF.
3/12/08: Oh, today was just too good to pass up. I was able to button up the plane and do a maintenance flight for .9 hours. Ah, what a sunset. OOOhh what a waste of time bending and spacing the baffles was. Guess the next step to get the CHTs down is to block the gaps at the front of the cowl and smooth the air inflow. At least it was a pleasant cloudless, low wind evening at 61 degrees. Don't get that in March around these parts very often! Great way to see a nice orange sunset!
3/11/08: No flying today or yesterday, down for minor maintenance. Drilled out the pop rivets in the gear leg fairings and removed the cowls. Dumped the mineral oil and changed the filter. Inserted 8 quarts of 15W50. I adjusted the idle down a bit. Hope to get the RPMs down to around 500 or so at idle, not the 630 to 720 that I've been seeing. The plane actually wants to start moving at those high idles. The prop max RPM has only been up to 2620. I want 2700, so I screwed the set screw on my governor 3 x 1/2 turns and wired it back up. The screw is almost all the way out, so whatever I get with this change will probably all I bother with. I don't run around at max RPM that much, and can't imagine 50 RPMs one way or the other at that range would make a lot of difference.
There is some oil bleed through on the cowl. A good coat of pin hole filler, epoxy primer and /or finish coat would certainly solve that issue (as well as making sure no oil is leading inside the cowl anywhere). But my experience with older planes is that the fiberglass cloth cracks and breaks, and cracks the paint with it. So to add another level of density (and weight) to reduce the likelihood of any cracking or bleed through, I painted on another layer of epoxy inside the cowl. Now I just have to watch and see what the heat does to it. Hope to button the cowl up tomorrow night and get back to flying on Friday. Time for some real testing.
Oh, and I modified the baffles around cylinders 1 and 2 to try and let some more air around them to reduce the CHTs. I tried to bend the front baffles away from the cylinders about 1/8 inch. On the left side, I put two washers under the front screw holding the baffle to the front of #2 cylinder. Eager to test fly this and see if it makes any difference.
3/09/08: Turned out to be a decent morning. Started navigating up to 6500 toward KBMG. Half way there I heard a big hiccup in the engine and turned back toward home. For the next two hours, the engine ran smooth as silk. I did another ILS and figured out that the lack of audio from the outer marker was from lack of pushing the button to turn it on. Duh. Regrettably, I'm still having problems with the GNS 480. The GPS shut off after 2 hours, and DU#1 will not display proper NAV from the 480. I blew through the ILS course big time waiting for the bars to come in. Should have known something was wrong the way they were flashing earlier. Funny that the cross hairs don't flash on an off on DU2, but it still doesn't work. Using the SL30 and both DUs works beautifully. Must be some kind of garbage coming from the 480, probably associated with the ARINC ports... who knows. Time to email the avionics shop and give a call to Garmin AT... again.
On the second flight at the end of the day, I finally went the long way down to BMG for gas and back. BMG has 100LL STILL UNDER $4!!!! I was out "burning time" anyway, so I figured I'd stop in and save 50 cents or more a gallon over what I pay at home. It was a nice flight, but the ceiling was down and the viz, too. Didn't accomplish much as far as testing goes, but I did warm up the oil for a change when I got back home. Time to put in the ashless dispersant provided by Mattituck.
3/08/08: Had a nice time flying through unforecast snow squalls today. Haven't had the opportunity to pilot through that much snow for several years, back in the Tiger days. Did my first vectored ILS approach to check out the GNS 480 and SL30 navs today with great success. Just for fun, I stayed at high cruise down the ILS. Works pretty well without any weather to speak of, until you get to the end, at the DH.
Happy to report that my GPS in the 480 stayed up and running the entire flight today. Hopefully, the last bit of trouble was a tray seating problem after all.
Had fun doing a few fly byes at a YE/Boy Scout event at Wilson Field, north of Rockville, IN today. Was really bumpy, but a few dozen scouts braved the 20 degree weather and harsh blowing snow to be outside while my Rocket, a Comanche 250 and a Mooney 252 did several overhead passes. I did a touch and go too. What really surprised me was that several kids were doing YE rides in a Cessna out of the field today. Wow, tough day for a first airplane experience. Hope they enjoyed the snow showers from the air!
3/05/08: Snuck away from the office early at the end of the day. Rarely get to fly during the week due to work. Enjoyed getting out and burning a couple hours, continuing to learn the avionics and flight characteristics of my EVO. Did a couple of very sweet, very slow 3 point landings today. Yeah, baby.
The AP problems continue and are very real. Altitude hold still works, but lateral steering is kaput. After landing, I decided to see if I could still "steer" the plane with the heading knob on the AP control head. What I heard with the engine off was ugly squealing and no movement from the aileron servo. With the avionics disconnected from the AP, the stick should follow turns of the knob. Ruh Roh. Took out the front seat and floor and checked the aileron servo. I think it's fubar. I already have an RMA for repairs and updating of the AP control head from Lucas at TruTrak. Now I think part of the problem, perhaps ALL of the problem could be in the servo. Unless the control head is sending some seriously bad data to the servo, I think it's shot. Well, Lucas wanted to update the control head software anyway, so I think both parts are going back to the manufacturer.
I released, bumped, reinserted, released, bumped and reinserted the GNS 480. The GPS wouldn't turn on, still getting a "Warning, Communication lost with GPS". Sucks. I think the next step is to pull the tray, cut 1/16 off the panel end of the tray and see if the unit seats deeper into the connectors. This has worked in the past with some avionics shops and experimenters, but the problem may be the shape of the back of the tray, and how it holds the connectors apart, even with the unit fully and completely seated (which may already be the case). Then again, the 480 may just still be fucked up internally. Garmin AT doesn't think so. But they didn't think so the first time, either, and they had to replace the NAV board (which powers and communicates with the GPS). Grrrrrr....
3/02/08: I wasn't sure the winds would be amenable to any flying this AM. Surprisingly, they were only 150 @ 5 on the ground, so that was a pleasant surprise. A pattern altitude overcast doesn't build confidence in test phase cross countries, but I went out away from the airport for more testing, anyway. After about 45 minutes I was getting bucked so badly that I just didn't feel like pursuing the effort any longer.
My GNS 480 stayed lit, this time, without rebooting in the air, like it did 4 times yesterday. That might have been a seating problem in the tray, which evidently has plagued these units over the years. However, after about 5 minutes, the GPS failed (Communication Lost With GPS) again. Frankly, I was surprised that it even worked for 5 minutes, since I couldn't get it to come back on at all yesterday after cooling down on the ground for over an hour. Back to the drawing board. :-(
3/01/08: Today was much nicer than yesterday. Not as good as forecast again, but the flying was great. Four motley planes went to Greencastle, Indiana for breakfast buffet. Then we went flying all over the place (within my test area). KSIV, KDCY, Wilson Field, and back to home. Lots of lolly gagging and pics in loose formation taken along the bumpy way. Rocket sure looks bigger than it really is in the pic below (on the ramp at KSIV), doesn't it?!?
Comanche Bill, Mooney Jerry and Cessna John all got to be blown away by my Rocket. Jerry actually kept his turbo 252 up and out of the way most of the time, but I still caught him down low. A lot of fun to romp around with other guys and play in the air.
Was nice bumping into a bunch of other pilots and experimenters at Greencastle, too. Vince Frazier and John Crabtree were there in Crazy Horse (F1H). Bob Japundza was there in his RV, but I couldn't seem to catch up with him on the ramp. Guess I spent to much time eating. Anyway, that is a major Saturday morning hang out for pilots. Good food and a good time.
This is just a beautiful airframe. Even at 50 years old, the lines of the Comanche 250 are still impressive:
I got the chance to test my recently returned GNS480. It broke again after about 5 minutes. Now the GPS doesn't work. And it's rebooted 4 times in the air. Bad connection or wiring? Maybe. But it sucks. Autopilot still doesn't work properly either. This part of the test program is eating up a lot of time and patience. And money, too. Sucks big time.
2/29/08: Landed once today. That was enough. After two hours of constant light to moderate chop, I landed in a 40 degree cross with wind 14G22. It wasn't hard, but it wasn't pretty either. Wow, what a blustery day.
After landing, I installed a second RAMI antenna on the belly. I actually put it under the right battery bay. I disconnected the strut antenna and used what was left of that RG400 coax to hook it up. Then I re-installed my repaired GNS480 (Nav board failed, cost me $120+ to ship it back and forth which SUCKS) and hooked it up to the aft antenna. The SL-30 is connected to the new antenna. Tomorrow I'll test fly it.
2/24/08 The forecast morons blew the weather predictions for the day today. It was supposed to be CAVU and mild winds, and I was hoping to get over 5 hours. At least they got the winds right... almost. I was fuzzing out in the pattern at about 800 AGL. Viz was being called 8 miles, but that was very optimistic. I flew anyway. I burned 2.2 hours in the pattern. Yep, in the pattern. I did 57 touch and goes. Just kidding. I did OHARE sized patterns as much as possible and only touched down 6 or 7 times. I did floaty low approaches, nearly 3 pointing, then went around. I practiced dumping the flaps at around 80, which is a non event, although the tail does drop. I did a couple high speed passes, getting over 200 knots on final. Not bad.
Oh, I actually flew twice. The first time was .3 hours. It was a test of the gear leg fairings (GLFs). While I was waiting for the weather to go VFR this AM, I went ahead and did a test install of the GLFs. I had to retape them after landing to check them, then I went out for almost two solid hours without stop. Fun!
2/23/08: 2 hours and 26 gallons today at 23 squared. Didn't lean TOO much. Still need to work on getting the CHTs on 1 & 2 down another 50 degrees or so, otherwise the plane ran and flew wonderfully. Trying to reconfigure my EFIS so that my AP would work, and it died. Maybe THAT'S why I was having problems getting it to lock on. It was CAVU over my airport today, but only in about a 25 mile radius. That limits me when I'm tooling around at 175 knots. Did a lot of back and forth along the impinging cloud deck, and climbed up to over 6500 feet just to test the CHTs in cruise climb. Well, now I have to dx the AP problem and see what's up with that. My 480 is supposed to be back on Tuesday to re-install. Hope it works.
The weather is a little frustrating. Tomorrow was supposed to be clear and 3 knots all day. Now it's going to snow all day instead. Was hoping to spend about 5 hours in the air, but that might not happen. Maybe I'll work on gear leg fairings iinstead.
2/20/08: John Watler learned that my 2005 Subaru Outback XT was trashed on Monday by a kid cutting out in front of me. John also knows I have a reservation to get a smart fortwo. John also gets bored at work sometimes.
My smart
is going to
actually be blue and black... if I ever get it. Tired of wasting all
that gas driving back and forth to work. This car costs about the same,
and also gets about the same gas mileage, as my FJR1300. My
XT
definitely took it on the chin. Note that the wheel is just sitting
there. That, and all the parts behind it, back to the motor are all
just sitting there on the ground. I just hope that they total it. The
entire right side, bumper to bumper would have to be redone (although
it doesn't look that bad in the pic). Ugh. Waiting for the adjusters
and insurance companies to do their thing.
2/16/08: 1.5 hours in the air today. Before taking off, I installed my wheel pants. Also removed the wet compass from over the top of the autopilot. Didn't seem to make any difference to the VSGV. Even with the steering data disabled and the AP set on HDG, it would not track. Something is wrong. Oh well, it was a beautiful day to hand fly the plane. Followed Comanche Bill over to Greencastle for good eats and hangar flying. Then up to Wilson, a private strip north of Rockville, Indiana. Then down to Shawnee field again to see how much the flood waters had receded. Not much. Then back to KSIV for a couple passes, then landed to hangar fly some more. Nice. Amazingly, my wheel pants as installed had no adverse effects on the handling of the Rocket, and made it just a wee bit faster. The plane sure seemed slippery after installing those babies. Can wait to finish the rest of the fairings.
Oh, and there was some question about whether or not my oil cooler set up would work. It works too well. Even with more than half of the back of the cooler blocked off with metal tape (for winter temp flying), I've never gotten the oil temps over 175 degrees. And the head temps on the aft cylinders is fine. Think I'll add one more width of metal tape to get the oil temp over 180. Then I'll fashion a winter cover plate for the back of my cooler for next winter's flying.
2/15/08: What a nice afternoon. I climbed to 3500 ft for a 23² cruise to a nearby county strip. I had changed my autopilot and GPS baud rate back to 4800 in order to see if I could get my VSGV to lock on and fly the plane. No such luck. For some reason the VSGV will lock on to a heading for a few seconds (showing a flashing PLUS + sign), then unlocks to a question mark and resets the heading (kind of like spinning a compass heading). I turned off the GPS source and tried to use the autopilot in heading mode and it still doesn't work, does the same thing whether or not it has a GPS source. So I don't think it's the steering source. Maybe it's the wet compass I have installed directly over the top of it. You wouldn't think that itty bitty compass magnets would cause the AP magnetometers to go all wonky, but maybe that's the problem. Tomorrow, I'm going to remove the compass and see if it has any effect.
I re-aligned my wheels and this was a test flight with the improperly sized RV8 shims in place. Boy, the plane rolled by hand out of the hangar MUCH easier and felt "slick" when I was taxiing. That is a great improvement. I did a nice soft wheel landing and found that the plane is VERY stable and I didn't have to dance on the rudder pedals at all. I didn't have to dance before either, but I'm glad that nothing changed for the worse, it's all for the better. I could still stand to increase the camber on each side by about 1/2 degree or so, but until I can get some properly sized shims, I'm going to call it good.
My RAMI antenna on my SL-30 was able to get ATIS from my home base at about 40 miles at 2000 ft AGL. That's pretty good. Regrettably, the experimental tape antenna only reached out about 10 miles. We're still experimenting with it, but if that's all it will reach out, there's not much use in pursuing it's completion.
2/10/08: Right now it's 18F and 16G32 out at the airport. A good day to stay on the ground, especially when you only have 11.3 hours time in type. Today I fixed a broken wire. My trim position indicator in the EFIS went tits up because the 5 volt excitation wire broke. Yep, I was ham handing a bundle of wires around the autopilot and evidently "brokeded" it.
The other big project today was to re-align the wheels. All I did was reset the camber. 2 degrees on the left wheel, 3 degrees on the right wheel. More on that topic on the landing gear page.
2/9/08: 2 Hours flight time combining three flights, today and a little itty bitty one yesterday (.3). Testing the autopilot, which seems to not like the ARINC output from the EFIS. Does a fair job in the heading mode, holds altitude very well, but something is amiss. The flights weren't eventful. Landed with about 12 knot gusting direct cross wind. It wasn't pretty, but no metal was bent. Went south to the Bloomfield/Shawnee area to look at tornado damage and inspect how flooded (as usual) the Eel and White rivers are. Everything is flooded near all the rivers and streams in the area. Thankfully all the rain we had a few days ago was liquid. If it was snow, we'd be tunneling out still. Ah, but looking over all the wetlands from the air today in clear blue skies was great. Today was one day that the forecast was wrong, actually BETTER than predicted for a change. Where we were expecting low clouds and high winds, we got clear skies and moderate winds. Nice. Unfortunately, I was planning on a couple more hour sin the air tomorrow, but the forecast is for winds of 21 gusting 34. Knots. Thanks to our friends to the North for sending us down a rapid moving Arctic cold front. So I think I'll work on the plane in the hangar. Maybe.
Also, spent about 4 hours trying to make the tailwheel stop "breaking free" on right turns and nearly causing ground loops. Re-shaped the "locking pin". Nope. Shim the tw axle in it's cylinder? Nope. Finally had to use a carbide bit (thanks Jeff!) to cut the slot (steel and bronze?) where the locking pin does it's job. Evidently my rudder moves WAY over spec from side to side, and/or the shape of the pin slot was just not conducive to keeping the pin locked at the stops. It is now. Wasn't pretty using a 1/8 inch carbide bit in a dremel, but the job is done. All my buddies agreed: the machining of the tail wheel yoke (barrel that holds the tailwheel axle with the locking pin slot) was not symmetrical by any means. The slot was short and narrow on one side, and the angle of the curvature of the half moon sort of shaped slot wasn't the same on either side. Reshaping the pin to blunt the nose or the sides was a big waste of time. In the end, cutting the pin slot in the tailwheel yoke did the trick. Sad that it was such a mess. Kept greasing the crap out of it, too. What the hell is that zerk fitting on there for? Forget using that thing all together. Anything more than a very thin film of grease and that thing doesn't work worth a crap.
2/6/08: Another day stuck in the office. Sent my new, discontinued, broken GNS480 to Garmin AT in Oregon at my own expense. Yep, Garmin evidently does not pay shipping EITHER DIRECTION. Maybe they only do that to experimenters? Sucks no matter how you slice it. ITMT, I'm trying to configure my EFIS to work with the VSGV autopilot and (eventually) the 480. I've come to learn that with an internal GPS in the GRT EFIS, you can NOT use the corresponding serial ports. I've also learned that the in and out port for the GPS has to be set at the GPS speed of 4800 baud. Now, the TT AP needs to be set at 9600 for the 480. So you find an empty RS232 serial port and run a wire to the AP (in my case to the newly installed GPS source toggle switch) and set THAT port at 9600 baud. Fine.
Now as far as the ARINC 429 module, you CAN use those serial ports, both in and out, for other uses. But the ARINC speed (shown after you tell the EFIS system that YES, it has an ARINC module installed) should be set at HIGH for transmit and LOW for receive. And evidently the GNS480 needs to be set similarly. The serial port speeds have to match at both ends, so I think what will happen is that everything will be set to LOW, just to be sure. Since my 480 is somewhere between Champaign and Salem, I can't really test the configuration. But it took several emails and a couple calls to Garmin AT, GRT and TT to just get this far. At least I was able to confirm that I now have two separate sources of GPS location and steering data for the autopilot. Which will make me sleep better, considering my GNS 480 failed in under 10 hours of use.
2/3/08: I spent the morning waiting for the snow fog to lift. I decided to install a flap toggle switch in the throttle handle (just a cylinder/tube as a grip). As an experiment, I just wrapped the ON-OFF-(ON) mini toggle with electrical tape and wedged it in the tube. After soldering 22 gauge wire to the three terminals. Then I spent an hour running the wires to the bow tie bracket in the stick bay. I didn't disconnect the L & R buttons on the grip yet because I wasn't sure I'd like the toggle on the handle. I do. I'll use the L & R buttons for something else.
Also, in preparation for the day when I'm ready to install the wheel pants and gear leg fairings, I installed 4 nutplates in each wheel pant in order to #8 screw them together.
The sun came out. I went for a nice 1.1 hour ride at the end of the day. I was literally flying circles around my friend Kelvin's Cherokee 6. I went on a little cross country, did some playing in the pattern at a couple other airports, and generally was just burning gas and enjoying the flying. I still have lots of testing to do, and I am learning the avionics systems a little more when I go out. But I have over 30 more hours of testing to do in my "box", so I'm not in any hurry.
2/02/08: Another no-fly day. After about 4 inches of snow in the last two days, the finally sun came out, and the temps got up to 43F. The ramp melted off and much of it began to dry. I didn't feel like taxiing out on still partially snow covered sloppy runways and taxiways, so I worked on glitches. Yes, Rocket Fans, there are still glitches. Many of them. The main being that my new, newly discontinued GNS 480 lites up, but no one is home. The avionics shop says it's the radio. Garmin says it's the wiring. So I spent some quality time with a multi-meter and some pinned jumper wires. Near as I can tell, the wiring is fine. If it's an intermittent problem, I sure can't make it duplicate. Time to call the shop on Monday again. Probably have to send the 480 to Salem, OR to the Garmin AT shop. That'll leave a hole in the panel for a few weeks!
It's quite weird. The GPS plots my location and the MAP screen works, but the NAV, COM, MEMORY and RESOLVER all give up lost communication errors, and lock me out of ALL radio functions (except OFF). Now this unit evidently has a bad reputation for not seating fully into it's "tube" ("tray" to the rest of us), causing pins not to seat and the radio to have problems. Garmin AT said that was more a problem back in the COX80 days, no longer with the new units (what few remain....). Stark Avionics told me they really like how the radio works, but they are glad they won't have to install them any longer because they have terrible problems getting them to seat properly and function without "lost com" errors. Well, mine worked great for about 4 or 5 hours in flight. Finally, it dropped the COM and the NAV, and I pulled the unit at the end of a flight and it was REALLY hot. I mean REALLY hot. Today, I ran it for about 45 minutes and it was cool as a cucumber. So I don't know what happened. I also pulled the tube (tray) out of the panel and MADE SURE the radio was fully seated. The bezel was jammed up against the forward edge of the tray. Garmin AT told me to loosen the toggle and bump the face to seat the pins. I tried this several times without any success at all. Back to the drawing board. :-(
Another little project was installing a data source switch for my autopilot. The way the avionics shop wired my system, if the 480 fails (it did), then the autopilot is useless because the screwy data from the failed 480 makes the Digiflight II VSGV screwy, too. So I put in a 3PST switch under the AP head in my panel. I split off the RS232 GPS data and the two ARINC 429 data wires from the 480 and the GRT EFIS, and soldered them to the switch. Now I can flip back and forth between the WAAS GPS in the GNS 480 and the WAAS GPS that's installed internally in DU2 in my EFIS.
Except that the GPS in the EFIS won't boot. Yep, it's toast, too. Or I have something configured so wrong in the setup that the GPS won't initialize. Time to call Grand Rapids on Monday, too. Ugh. Oh well, if it warms up tomorrow, I can still fly local (like I can do anything BUT fly local) and use COM2 and a sectional.
1/27/08: Finally a beautiful winter day to fly. First flight of 1.5 was splendid. Plenty of heat (more than I needed). CHTs didn't really change. Calibrated the TruTrak autopilot and used it to fly back and forth. Then it started acting funny. Then the Garmin 480 failed. I switched to COM2 and landed ASAP. Pulled the box from the panel, hoping to reseat it as before to "reset" it, but it didn't work. In fact the radio was extremely hot. It stayed powered up, with the cooling fans running and plenty of breathing space (and not too much cabin heat), but the NAV and COM sides both showed an error. Got a memory failure that said service required. Great, just in time for my first cross country venture away from the airport.
Second
flight today was using COM2. The 480 screen still showed my GPS
position, but otherwise was essentially locked up. But the flight was
fun, anyway. I paired up with "Comanche Bill" in his 1958 250 model. He
was my "chase plane". Actually, he was my navigator and my voice. We
went to three other airports as a flight of two. Last stop before
coming home was to Plainfield, IN to stop and say howdy to Jim Winings.
Turned out that he was going for a sunset flight, so we made it a 3
ship flight for part of the trip back to HUF. Jim sure has a gorgeous
Rocket, and man is he a smooooth stick! Ahhhhh, what a wonderful day!
(except for the radio malfunction.)
1/26/08:
Mother Nature still working against me this
winter. No flying today. Dropped the cowl and did some engine
compartment checks. Cut the alternator arm off about 3/8 of an inch to
clear the bottom cowl (allowing for engine sag). Blocked off about 1/2
of the oil cooler to see if I can get the oil temps up over 180 (only
160 as a high so far). #1 & #2 cylinders ran 50 degrees hotter
than
3 - 6 when moderately leaned, so I reduced the baffle in front of the
cylinder fins (directly
inside the air inlets on the cylinder "face"). I also rasped back the
cowling air inlets to perhaps smooth the flow and get more air to the
front cylinder head area. Finally, I added the second scat duct and
interconnected the two heat muffs to hopefully increase the
cabin
heat to a tolerable level. It was about 23F when I was flying last and
I had to fly with stocking cap and gloves to stay comfortable. One
Robbins heat muff is definitely not enough, and I'm not sure that two
is going to be enough. Seat heaters have been ordered, and I may start
insulating the cabin.
1/25/08: Another confidence building hour in the air over the airport. Getting better at keeping the nose where it needs to be in order to maintain altitude in turns. The plane is very stable, wants to stay where you put it. My OAT sensor needs to be moved more out into the air stream, it's reading is about 20 degrees high from being too far back inside the NACA duct. My GTX 327 is wired THROUGH the GNS 480, so if I have a nav failure (the side of the radio that really runs the show) I won't get any mode C. Going to have to work around that. Also, if you set the GRT Horizon 1 EFISs (EFI?) to interconnect (Inter-Display Link), changing any parameter on one display changes the corresponding value on the other display. Makes sense, but it actually would be nice if not ALL parameters changed identically. I have two GPSs and two ILSs, and it would be nice to view each one independently on separate DUs (Display Units). I may eventually turn off the inter-display link so that I can display different navigation units on separate DU's.
1/25/08: Another confidence building hour in the air over the airport. Getting better at keeping the nose where it needs to be in order to maintain altitude in turns. The plane is very stable, wants to stay where you put it. My OAT sensor needs to be moved more out into the air stream, it's reading is about 20 degrees high from being too far back inside the NACA duct. My GTX 327 is wired THROUGH the GNS 480, so if I have a nav failure (the side of the radio that really runs the show) I won't get any mode C. Going to have to work around that. Also, if you set the GRT Horizon 1 EFISs (EFI?) to interconnect (Inter-Display Link), changing any parameter on one display changes the corresponding value on the other display. Makes sense, but it actually would be nice if not ALL parameters changed identically. I have two GPSs and two ILSs, and it would be nice to view each one independently on separate DUs (Display Units). I may eventually turn off the inter-display link so that I can display different navigation units on separate DU's.
I flew
precisely 1 hour beginning with full tanks. My EFIS was showing
14.7 gph burn @ 4500 MSL and 22/2400. When I gassed up after the
flight, I put in 14.8 gallons. Pretty accurate, eh?! I put in 1 quart
of non dispersant Phillips mulitgrade oil (came with the engine) to
bring the oil quantity up to about 8.5 quarts (shows 7 on the ground).
Seems like the engine threw out oil down to showing 6 quarts (about 7.5
actual). Wondering if the rings have started to seat yet? (Don't think
so...)
1/21/08: No flying today, but after work I went to the hangar to see if I could get my GNS480 (now extinct) to talk to my GTX 327. I hate not having mode "C". Word from the avionics shop turned out to be true. The 480 bezel was hanging up on the instrument panel and keeping the box from seating completely in the "tube". Without the pins contacting properly, no talky. After hacking the panel to get the faceplate to seat against the "tube", problem solved. Then it was only a matter of extrapolation and interpolation to get the configurations right. I now have mode C and the transponder shows pressure altitude.
1/20/08: Another hour of flying goodness @ 4500 feet over the top of the airport. Running 21/24 and making about 170 knots or so. Leaned out a bit to get the fuel flow down to sub 15 gph. OAT showed 23, but seemed much colder. The sponge I used to help stop the wing root airflow through the stick bay helped. But mostly I figured out that with only 1 Robbins heat muff attached, there ain't 'nuf heat. Flow is good, but temps just aren't there. Time to run some more scat and see if I can warm up the front seat a bit more. The autopilot acted a little wonky. It wanted to pitch the plane pretty dramatically. Held course, but was pitch unstable. Going to have to look into that. This plane is fairly pitch sensitive anyway. In turns, I'm surprised how LITTLE changes in stick back or forward pressure is required, then in cruise I seem to always be climbing or descending. Rookie.
1/21/08: No flying today, but after work I went to the hangar to see if I could get my GNS480 (now extinct) to talk to my GTX 327. I hate not having mode "C". Word from the avionics shop turned out to be true. The 480 bezel was hanging up on the instrument panel and keeping the box from seating completely in the "tube". Without the pins contacting properly, no talky. After hacking the panel to get the faceplate to seat against the "tube", problem solved. Then it was only a matter of extrapolation and interpolation to get the configurations right. I now have mode C and the transponder shows pressure altitude.
1/20/08: Another hour of flying goodness @ 4500 feet over the top of the airport. Running 21/24 and making about 170 knots or so. Leaned out a bit to get the fuel flow down to sub 15 gph. OAT showed 23, but seemed much colder. The sponge I used to help stop the wing root airflow through the stick bay helped. But mostly I figured out that with only 1 Robbins heat muff attached, there ain't 'nuf heat. Flow is good, but temps just aren't there. Time to run some more scat and see if I can warm up the front seat a bit more. The autopilot acted a little wonky. It wanted to pitch the plane pretty dramatically. Held course, but was pitch unstable. Going to have to look into that. This plane is fairly pitch sensitive anyway. In turns, I'm surprised how LITTLE changes in stick back or forward pressure is required, then in cruise I seem to always be climbing or descending. Rookie.
1/18/08:
Finally
a full hour in the air. No glitches, just sweetness flying at a low 75%
power. Back and forth over the airport at 4500 feet just
burning
gas and rebuilding confidence. No electrical problems. No troubles
switching tanks. Used my "index" button below the trigger to turn on
and off the autopilot and see if it would hold straight and level on
CWS. It worked great! I think it's time to venture out into
the
practice area, get up higher and start some real testing.
1/12/08: Two test flights today. Two turns around the patch without the engine or electrical system quitting. That was nice. The first flight was probably the most nervous I've been in the 6 or 7 times I've been up. I made two circuits with a bunch of students in the pattern as well as inbound. I decided to quit. Later on, we tweaked my strut antenna and I went for a test flight. The EFIS data was corrupted a bit and the engine RPM were reduced when I pressed the PTT. Something's wrong there, so I decided to land. After I did a pass at 195 knots. Back to the drawing board with the copper tape antenna. As I was turning downwind to land, I heard Paul Siegel inbound to land. Nice of Paul and his brother Rudy to come over from Cincy for a short visit. His EVO sure is pretty. N4XU is VERY sweet!
12/24/07: Two test flights this day. First one was up to 4500 MSL about 1 mile from the runways. First flight of the day was nice and routine without anything scary happening. I was running full prop and full throttle in level cruise. I figured out that the prop was not turning the full 2700 RPM (in fact, I want 2750). Also noted that the rudder needed left leg in cruise. On the second flight I finally started playing with the quadrant controls a little. I'm breaking in a new engine, and Mattituck wants the engine run at least 75% power. I decided to lean back anyway just to see what happens. As the lever came back, I noticed the temps on the gauges start to show temp increases. Then the engine began to run rough. I eased the mixture back in a little and the engine was still rough. A little more rich, and the engine quit. I had been having electrical problems, and I had electrical problems on the brain. Instead of going through the standard emergency engine out procedures, I switched electrical systems and called the tower. With that MT prop and IO540 making almost no noise or power, I didn't know what to expect. I expedited to the runway for my first 3 point landing (which was beautiful, just passed the numbers) and the engine was actually at idle. Then evidently the little bounce on the landing sloshed some gas into the fuel lines because the engine went full throttle all of a sudden. Good thing I had the stick all the way back, otherwise I might have had a prop strike. Yes, I ran out of gas on my left tank. Evidently my fuel computer was correct, I was putting about 27 gallons an hour through the engine and emptied the left tank. No wonder the right wing felt so heavy. Duh.
Dec 14, 2007. First Flight! Finally the sun came out, the air cleared somewhat and the airport began to dry out. Oddly enough, about 5 of my flying buddies figured out that I would try to go to the airport and fly today, and they showed up just at the right time. It was nice to have a gallery of friends, well wishers, ground crew and photographers. You meet the nicest people at airports!
1/12/08: Two test flights today. Two turns around the patch without the engine or electrical system quitting. That was nice. The first flight was probably the most nervous I've been in the 6 or 7 times I've been up. I made two circuits with a bunch of students in the pattern as well as inbound. I decided to quit. Later on, we tweaked my strut antenna and I went for a test flight. The EFIS data was corrupted a bit and the engine RPM were reduced when I pressed the PTT. Something's wrong there, so I decided to land. After I did a pass at 195 knots. Back to the drawing board with the copper tape antenna. As I was turning downwind to land, I heard Paul Siegel inbound to land. Nice of Paul and his brother Rudy to come over from Cincy for a short visit. His EVO sure is pretty. N4XU is VERY sweet!
12/24/07: Two test flights this day. First one was up to 4500 MSL about 1 mile from the runways. First flight of the day was nice and routine without anything scary happening. I was running full prop and full throttle in level cruise. I figured out that the prop was not turning the full 2700 RPM (in fact, I want 2750). Also noted that the rudder needed left leg in cruise. On the second flight I finally started playing with the quadrant controls a little. I'm breaking in a new engine, and Mattituck wants the engine run at least 75% power. I decided to lean back anyway just to see what happens. As the lever came back, I noticed the temps on the gauges start to show temp increases. Then the engine began to run rough. I eased the mixture back in a little and the engine was still rough. A little more rich, and the engine quit. I had been having electrical problems, and I had electrical problems on the brain. Instead of going through the standard emergency engine out procedures, I switched electrical systems and called the tower. With that MT prop and IO540 making almost no noise or power, I didn't know what to expect. I expedited to the runway for my first 3 point landing (which was beautiful, just passed the numbers) and the engine was actually at idle. Then evidently the little bounce on the landing sloshed some gas into the fuel lines because the engine went full throttle all of a sudden. Good thing I had the stick all the way back, otherwise I might have had a prop strike. Yes, I ran out of gas on my left tank. Evidently my fuel computer was correct, I was putting about 27 gallons an hour through the engine and emptied the left tank. No wonder the right wing felt so heavy. Duh.
Dec 14, 2007. First Flight! Finally the sun came out, the air cleared somewhat and the airport began to dry out. Oddly enough, about 5 of my flying buddies figured out that I would try to go to the airport and fly today, and they showed up just at the right time. It was nice to have a gallery of friends, well wishers, ground crew and photographers. You meet the nicest people at airports!
I
pulled my Rocket out and climbed in. Strapped down and started up. It
was a relatively balmy 60 degrees in my hangar with the sun on it even
though it was about 30 outside, so my oil was somewhat warm before I
even started. Waited for all the instruments (the EFIS) to show green
and taxied out.
After
a couple short taxi tests, I went back to the
hold short line on
our 9K+ runway and asked for take off clearance.
This first time I just eased the throttle in and the tail came up quickly. Broke ground and I was probably somewhere shy of 2K rpm. I went the length of the runway before making a subtle right turn to the crosswind, then another to the downwind. I finally eased in all the throttle and noticed I was over 2200 feet (1600 foot pattern)! I left the throttle in, and nosed over. The plane was going straight and was simply easy to fly. I did notice that the stick forces seemed rather heavy, but the plane was stable and smooth.
Ready to turn right base for a practice approach first time around a pattern. That wasn't the original test plan, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Back on the throttle and watch the speed bleed. Below 95 knots, bring down some flaps. Turn base. Speed coming down to about 75 over the approach, 70 over the numbers. What the heck, I was given "the option", so I did a touch and go. HOW EASY! DOCILE! NON EVENT! SWEEEEEEET!
This time, on the fly, ALL the throttle! Pull up to ground effect and push over. Tower gives me instructions to turn before the other end. Oh, don't EVEN give me THAT option! "Wilco". I turn out. This Rocket is SO easy to fly. Smooth, powerful, responsive. It's too much to bare. I definitely had a shit eating grin like you wouldn't believe! Butterflies all gone. After the first circuit I felt like I've been flying this plane for years!
On the close-in downwind, Tower gives me the option. Decide to try the low approach. All the throttle in. Turn base to final. Mid field I'm indicating 190 knots! Well, I didn't look at the GPS, but I'm gonna TAKE my indicated190 knots as a benchmark! Tower says turn out early again. Oh, it was SO hard not to do about a 120 degree wing over on the turn back to downwind. WOW, this thing SCREAMS!!!!!!!
WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!
Decide to land, call it good, I was having too much fun. It was supposed to be a test flight, after all. Throttle back, bleed the speed, flaps down, over the numbers at 70 indicated, stick it on the mains. Easy. Predictable. WAY too simple. My Rocket is MUCH easier to handle than I ever imagined. And FUN FUN FUN!
This first time I just eased the throttle in and the tail came up quickly. Broke ground and I was probably somewhere shy of 2K rpm. I went the length of the runway before making a subtle right turn to the crosswind, then another to the downwind. I finally eased in all the throttle and noticed I was over 2200 feet (1600 foot pattern)! I left the throttle in, and nosed over. The plane was going straight and was simply easy to fly. I did notice that the stick forces seemed rather heavy, but the plane was stable and smooth.
Ready to turn right base for a practice approach first time around a pattern. That wasn't the original test plan, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Back on the throttle and watch the speed bleed. Below 95 knots, bring down some flaps. Turn base. Speed coming down to about 75 over the approach, 70 over the numbers. What the heck, I was given "the option", so I did a touch and go. HOW EASY! DOCILE! NON EVENT! SWEEEEEEET!
This time, on the fly, ALL the throttle! Pull up to ground effect and push over. Tower gives me instructions to turn before the other end. Oh, don't EVEN give me THAT option! "Wilco". I turn out. This Rocket is SO easy to fly. Smooth, powerful, responsive. It's too much to bare. I definitely had a shit eating grin like you wouldn't believe! Butterflies all gone. After the first circuit I felt like I've been flying this plane for years!
On the close-in downwind, Tower gives me the option. Decide to try the low approach. All the throttle in. Turn base to final. Mid field I'm indicating 190 knots! Well, I didn't look at the GPS, but I'm gonna TAKE my indicated190 knots as a benchmark! Tower says turn out early again. Oh, it was SO hard not to do about a 120 degree wing over on the turn back to downwind. WOW, this thing SCREAMS!!!!!!!
WOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!
Decide to land, call it good, I was having too much fun. It was supposed to be a test flight, after all. Throttle back, bleed the speed, flaps down, over the numbers at 70 indicated, stick it on the mains. Easy. Predictable. WAY too simple. My Rocket is MUCH easier to handle than I ever imagined. And FUN FUN FUN!
First Flight Summary: 3 circuits, 2 touch downs, 1 COMPLETE SUCCESS!!!!!!! "Oh, you gotta get you wanna THESE!"
Here's some YouTube
vids of my first flight:
First Take Off Not much to look at, but glad to have the documentation.
First and Second Time Around the Patch T-N-G, 190 knot pass!
First Landing sweetness!
Taxiing Back to My Hangar after First Flight Yeah, baby!
Second Take Off 500 feet is all it took. I can do better. A LOT better!
Dec 9: TAF sez 1SM -RA BR BKN004 for all day, so I don't think I'll get out today. And since it's dark by the time I get off work during the week, it'll be next weekend before I get another chance. Bummer. Oh well, even though my Rocket is officially finished, there's still lots to do. Since I was originally going to fly without wheel pants and GLFs, I didn't final align them. Guess I'll do that today. Maybe put on the flap bracket fairings, too.
Dec 8, 2007: No first flight for the last three days of attempts. Weather and glitches keep me grounded. Broke a PTT wire, so no com. Fixed that, blew two fuses. Fixed that, no GPS.Fixed that, couldn't get the engine started. Figured out that problem, had a rudder pedal hanging up. Fixed that, still hanging. Fixed the rudder pedal (actually dented out the footwell), then had a catastrophic tailwheel axle bearing failure during taxi testing. And the rains settled in. Just wasn't meant to happen. It'll happen soon enough.
"
Airworthy!! " First Take Off Not much to look at, but glad to have the documentation.
First and Second Time Around the Patch T-N-G, 190 knot pass!
First Landing sweetness!
Taxiing Back to My Hangar after First Flight Yeah, baby!
Second Take Off 500 feet is all it took. I can do better. A LOT better!
Dec 9: TAF sez 1SM -RA BR BKN004 for all day, so I don't think I'll get out today. And since it's dark by the time I get off work during the week, it'll be next weekend before I get another chance. Bummer. Oh well, even though my Rocket is officially finished, there's still lots to do. Since I was originally going to fly without wheel pants and GLFs, I didn't final align them. Guess I'll do that today. Maybe put on the flap bracket fairings, too.
Dec 8, 2007: No first flight for the last three days of attempts. Weather and glitches keep me grounded. Broke a PTT wire, so no com. Fixed that, blew two fuses. Fixed that, no GPS.Fixed that, couldn't get the engine started. Figured out that problem, had a rudder pedal hanging up. Fixed that, still hanging. Fixed the rudder pedal (actually dented out the footwell), then had a catastrophic tailwheel axle bearing failure during taxi testing. And the rains settled in. Just wasn't meant to happen. It'll happen soon enough.
Dec
1, 2007: I now am the proud owner of
an airplane!
My F1-EVO Rocket is no longer a kit, but a bona fide
airplane!
Woohoo! Inspection with FSDO went smooth as silk, and was actually
quite a pleasant time. I learned a few things, did lots of
paperwork and about froze my butt off because my space heater quit
near the end. Well, it was worth it to get that special pink slip and
my repairman's certificate.
The plane sits in the hangar. Ready for first flight, except that I need to re-install the engine cowls (from the inspection).
My AIRPLANE:
The plane sits in the hangar. Ready for first flight, except that I need to re-install the engine cowls (from the inspection).
My AIRPLANE:
CLEAR!!
Engine
START! WOOHOO!! The engine runs beautifully,
started
right up on the first try. Thanks to Mattituck for such a fine product.
11/02/2007:
Now
THAT'S what I'M talking about! This
was a big day. Hooked up jacks to tap into
the avionics
stack and went for a drive. Talked to the tower on the strut antenna.
Taxied over to the big taxiway (wider and longer than most runways) and
dropped the flaps. Prop full forward, a little gas, forward
on
the stick. About 50 feet later the tail gently elevated. The view out
the front was SPECTACULAR!
This plane is a PUSSYCAT on the mains with the tail up. Wow, what a treat! Glad to say that my mains seem beautifully aligned and the plane tracks true. All systems are GO!!!!!!! Click this link if you want to watch a 14 meg mpeg of a taxi run. Warning: it's SLOW to load.
Top Of Page
This plane is a PUSSYCAT on the mains with the tail up. Wow, what a treat! Glad to say that my mains seem beautifully aligned and the plane tracks true. All systems are GO!!!!!!! Click this link if you want to watch a 14 meg mpeg of a taxi run. Warning: it's SLOW to load.
Top Of Page