What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Finally Flying

F

F1 Rocket

Well Known Member
Well, today was the day and I?ve finally flown my Rocket. It?s been a long time coming and I?m just over the moon with how well things went. I am a relatively low time pilot (< 300hrs) and I had not flown much of anything thing in the last 4 years. I knew going into this project that the Rocket was going to be a big step up in performance as all of my time up to very recently had been in my Kitfox. In preparation for the Rocket I got myself back into flying by getting my biannual and high performance endorsement in a ?56 182. I know the 182 is not considered much of a high performance aircraft but compared to the Kitfox it was. This was also my first exposure to constant speed props. After this I got some dual in a RV-6 (10 hrs and 87 landings) with me in the right seat. In addition to this my brother has a really sweet Extra 300LP so I took advantage of any time it was available and flew it from the front seat. This was great prep for the Rocket as the sight picture is very similar (the Rocket has better vis over the nose) as is the takeoff performance (the Rocket beats it here too) and overall sound/feel. With all this recent experience I?ve been pretty confident I could handle the Rocket. All that I needed was a good day and that day has finally come.

I don?t quite remember much of the takeoff other than I was grinning from ear to ear and the plane went straight as an arrow. My plan was to stay in the pattern for a bit but shortly after lift off the tower called and said if I was going to keep climbing I needed to contact Orlando Approach. At quick glance at the altimeter showed I was at 3000? and climbing (?gee? no wonder the earth was falling away so fast?) so I switched frequencies, checked in with Orlando and settled in at 4500?. After setting power @24/24 I let the airplane accelerate and started to get a feel for things. I don?t remember any of the numbers but the general feeling of the airplane is fantastic. The other thing a noticed very quickly was how much ground it was capable of covering in a short period of time. As in ?hey?where?d the airport go?? After approx 15 min I figured it was time to get a feel for the lower end of the speed envelope so I slowed it down, got the flaps out, and did some slow flight and approach stalls. All of this was a piece of cake so I brought the power back up to start climbing and the master engine caution alarm went off with a high oil pressure alarm. This got my attention pretty quick (as it should) but the engine sounded ok and after checking the Dynon EMS-10 it was apparent that all of the sensors were having an issue. Heeding the advice of many that it?s better to trouble shoot things on the ground I headed back to the airport. The approach was very easy to manage and the landing was pretty fair. Two light skips and she settled on all three and rolled out without much input from me. All in all it was a great first flight.

_________________
Danny Melnik
F1 N14ZM
Melbourne (FL) Rocket Factory
 
I'm really envious....

.....and I believe that eventually, a Rocket will be in my future! Congratulations and kindly keep us informed of your Phase 1 findings/performance,

Regards,
 
Congratulations....and now that your Rocket is flying you won't be living in "Melboring" any more!

Glenn Wilkinson
RV-4
N654RV @ MLJ
 
Thanks guys for all the encouragement.

I trouble shot the issue Dynon EMS-10 and as suspected it was self inflicted. I have a set of Bob?s Gross's cool :cool:Trim Control Modules and they need to know when the flaps are down in order to switch to full (high) speed mode. I also needed to tell my AOA when the flaps were down as well.
I have a DPDT relay installed to handle this but I still needed something to switch the relay on and off. Gee?..what would be the easiest, simplest, most logical way to do this? If your answer is something like a micro switch that is actuated by something on the flap drive you to get to pass Go and collect $200. As for me that makes way too much sense. In the spirit of again finding ways to complicate and extend the build time on #25 I had come up with the following:

I have a Ray Allen position sensor that is hooked up to the flap torque tube. This in turn is wired up to the EMS-10 and provides feed back to a really cool flap position indicator. Works great, looks great. Now, how can I screw it up? I got to thinking, (always dangerous) that I could whip up a simple circuit that would look at the output of the position sensor and turn the relay on and off at a set output voltage. A Solid State Relay Drive (SSRD). Sounds like something NASA would come up with eh! A few evenings, an op-amp, precision pot, caps, resistors and such (I threw in a few diodes for good measure) and I had the thing working pretty good. I was really proud. I was thinking this was a fantastic device that everyone would want. I was thinking I could probably sell a bazillion of them and pay for the airplane. Maybe even retire on the funds leftover.

I was thinking all of this up until I was at 4000? on my first flight in my homebuilt airplane. The first solo flight I had done in 4 years in an airplane that has almost 3 times the performance of the previous airplane I had flown solo. Yup there I was. Fat, dumb, and happy when all of the sudden the master caution comes on :eek:and all of the EMS indications started to fluctuate. For those that don?t have the Dynon EMS, this is a really loud tone that is fed into the headsets. It?s intended to get your attention and it works pretty well. This is not what I wanted or needed at this time and for a few seconds I thought I had an engine problem and was thinking my first landing was going to be dead stick in a field somewhere. After a few more seconds it was apparent that all was well with the engine and it was the EMS that was having the issue.

What failed? It was a partial short in my relay drive that back feed through the flap position sensor :eek:. The position sensor is fed by the same 5v reference voltage that powers most of the other EMS sensors. This one failure point caused the loss of most of my engine instrumentation. So?guess what I did today? If you said, install a micro switch that is actuated by something on the flap drive you get another $200.
_________________
Danny Melnik
F1 N14ZM
Melbourne (FL) Rocket Factory
 
That 5v Supply is what we call a 'single point failure mode'.
I try to design them all out. Of course, it's not possible to do so.
So we try to understand where they are and minimise the potential damage.
It would be so nice if we could just build an airplane, but in reality we are building complex systems into them with electronic displays and autopilots, trim controllers, engine monitors etc.
We have to spend a lot of time reading the instructions and thinking about the interfaces between different vendor supplied equipment.
 
Fantastic!

You have a great airplane. Stunning job all around! As you know, I have flown (as a Pax) with Bob a few times. I find the F1 to be "just right" in so many ways. Fast, efficient, fun and faster. While the Extra's are quite fast, the Rocket reaches speeds the Extra can't. Every time I fly in Bob's F1, he demonstrates some other operational aspect. On one recent flight, we achieved 24MPG. I think the engine was at 1700 RPM or some similar low RPM. Still, our speeds were OK. Once, we passed a Gulfstream GIV on long final and landed first. (as you may know, the GIV is not known for it's ability to fly slowly).

Interestingly enough, we flew one of our Extra 300L's in formation with our Pliatus PC-12. The Pilatus could not keep up with the Extra on take off or climb out. It took the Pilatus about 12 miles to catch the extra. The Rocket should be nearly impossible for the PC-12 to catch on short trips.

Make sure that back seat is comfortable, unlike the cement based back seat Bob has. Otherwise,,,, I will never fly with you. I can't decide what is worse, Bob's seat cushion or the Eurocopter EC-135 solid seats!

Enjoy your new bird. Be mindful of safety issues and you will enjoy a lifetime of experiences available to a select few.

Franklin E. Fraitus (Bob's friend)

P.S. I think your wallet is much lighter now that you purchased those fine wire plugs!
 
cujet said:
P.S. I think your wallet is much lighter now that you purchased those fine wire plugs!
Click to expand...

You were spot on about the plugs. They were like magic and completly transformed the engine. It may be that the oil fouling would have cleared up in a few more hours. It may be that I just had a bad plug in the original set. Regardless it was money well spent for the piece of mind in having the engine run well.

We plan on flying a lot in the next couple of weeks. 16 hours total on it now so your evaluation of the rear seat should be close at hand.


Danny
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top