Thursday, July 21, 2011

N701GV had its first flight around 5:30PM on Wednesday 7/20.

I flew my Cessna 150 up from BFI to to AWO and met Tom Staggs. He then took my C150 and flew chase.

The engine in N701GV is a 912ULS producing 100HP at 5800RPM. The prop is a three bladed Warp Drive High Power pitched to 11.5 degrees. Static run up RPM is 5500. It currently DOES NOT have strut fairings or tail VGs. Empty weight is 626lbs.

Everything went as well as could be hoped. John Adams will get his helmet and parachute back un-used. There are a few items that I will fix before the next flight.

The objectives of the test were met and all steps of the first flight's test plan were completed.

Overall N701GV behaved very well and displayed no bad in-flight control characteristics. The flight controls felt balanced and no wings felt "heavy". The rudders were stiff in flight making fine corrections hard,

The flight test was pretty simple. I slowly advance to full throttle and then let the plane jump off the run way. At about 300' above ground I offset with the runway under my left. At 1000' above ground the plane was climbing so fast there was still runway ahead.

I then started a gentle left, climbing turn to keep in a cone of safety that would allow me to glide back to the runway in case of engine failure leveling off at 3000'

With that done I then evaluated basic left and right turns up to 15 degrees of bank and a descent. The descent proceeded into a simulated approach and a go-around.

This was repeated again descending down to 1000' above ground. One more practice approach was made to only 50' above the runway climbing back to 1200'.

Finally a full landing was made. It was not my best landing. I started the flare too high and came in a little hard to the left of center and barely was able to overcome the rudder friction to stay on the runway. Control friction was probably the largest factor, but loading of the nose strut may have also played a role.

I pulled the cowling and all inspection plates\hatches. No leaks were found and all bolts remained tight with Torque-Seal markings intact.

Several issues were found that need to be resolved before the next flight.

Bug#1 - The control tension for the rudders made for a stiff control system. This made fine tuned flight corrections hard and presented a challenge after touchdown for remaining in the center of the runway.
Bug#2 - The Garmin 496 GPS draws some amount of electricity from the main battery all the time. This keeps the GPS internal backup battery charged, but also reduces the available cranking amperage for starting. I will install a disconnect switch to cut the charging mechanism to allow for long term storage.
Bug#3 - The passenger side door displayed puckering during high power settings. An additional aft locking pin slaved to the main door latch will be installed.

Tom was kind enough to grab a pic while I was flying. I also took a portrait of N701GV yesterday after the DAR visit.

The flight back to BFI was pretty boring.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations and well done.