100 hours in N824E (RV-10)
 

First 100 hours report. Here is what I Like, would do different, and things I have found in my first 100 hrs.

Squawks and Problems:
1. Had leak at break peddle on low pressure fitting of left break (pressurized when co-pilot uses breaks) did not notice it until after had a co-pilot.
2. When fixing above, found left break fitting on break (90 deg) was only hand tight and had been leaking a lot. Had noticed softer breaking with that side, but had just suspected an air bubble.
3. Found the ignition wire pass-through of the baffle had only been hand tightened. Found at hour 40 after many inspections and 2 oil changes. I found it while trying to tighten the baffling up more and filling every small hole with RTV.
4. Needed to removed 2/3-3/4 of front air deflectors on the cyl 1,2 baffles to get them cooler. I would leave them off to start with as this seems common to most RV-10s
5. Open door sensor wire got pinched in an adel clamp, causing it to be grounded after the pilot door. (EFIS-PilotDoor-(unintentional ground)-CopilotDoor-Ground ) This caused the open door sensor on copilot to never indicate open.
6. First flight out of airport environment (4 flight) had a short that caused primary electrical buss to go down. EFIS stayed up on backup battery, but had no radios or transponder (or flaps). Had to land at a different field (non-towered). If I had had a handheld radio it would have been much easier to go back to my towered airport then have to cart tools out to the airport I did land at.

Things I would do different:
1. Not use carbon-fiber panel. Love the look of it, that is why I put it in, but I have already thought of re-doing my panel for some new EFIS's that did not exist 18 months ago. Any of the carbon fiber designs limit how much you can move things in the future without pulling the entire panel out. Still love it now, but will not do it on my next build.
2. Put rudder peddles in rearward (closer to pilot) position, not forward. I'm 6'1 and with my seat up as far as I can get it and not have my crotch interfering with the stick and my knees pressing buttons on the dash, the peddles are a little further than I would like. Unless you are taller than 6'2 I would not use the front peddle position.
3. iPad mount on co-pilot side instead of 3rd EFIS. I always flew my cessna with my ipad and never had any problems seeing it, so I mounted it on a swivel mount. Quickly found it was not visible enough there, and started using it on my lap again. Now adding a 3rd EFIS.
4. Tack sensor. I had only wired my Lightspeed tack to my G3X and did not install a tack sensor. Did not fully think about no tack sensing when doing a mag check. Still have that on my todo list to get to at some time.
5. Make sure EVERTHING is done before first flight. Still have 10 minor items (not of airworthyness concern) that I planed on getting done while in phase I... they are still not done. Hard to work on it instead of flying.
6. Archer comm antenna. Had my comm 2 on an archer antenna in the wingtip. At least my install is useless over 10 miles. luckly because of mixed reports I had installed a doubler for a second wip antenna already.

Notes on Performance etc: (In Georgia in the Summer)
1. I have had no problems with oil temperatures. Usually in the 170's. I do have a butterfly valve in the oil cooler air, and will usually close it just a little to raise the temp a little to make sure all water gets boiled out. This is in Georgia in the summer.
2. CHT's climb quickly to 400 if I keep takeoff power past pattern altitude. If I drop down to 24 squared and 110-120 knots then temps stay 380-390. I still get a nice rate of climb 700-800 fpm with this.
3. In cruise 40-50 deg LOP at 9000 ft WOT & 2350 rpm seeing 163 knots at 9.7 gph with CHTs in the 350-360. 50 deg rich of peak 12-13 gph at 168-170.
4. Climbed to 22,000 ft with O2 just after completing phase 1. Was still getting about 200 fpm, but was temp limited or would have been higher. Was only getting 139 knots on 6.8 gph
5. GPS box vs TAS seems to show an error in my TAS of between 0 and 1.5 knots depending on airspeed from 70 knots to 170 knots.
6. Running through all the datapoints in my test plan took 34 hr. (first 5 hr were just breaking in the engine). I did not record anything while flying, but used EFIS log to pull the data from. This worked well. Use the EFIS to Mark (G3X) the start of a test and it puts a flag in the data file.
7. Tested to 2800 lbs (my gross weight) and max rearward CG (after burning off 3 gal I was out of CG to the rear). Stall break and recovery were still mild and easy. (moved a sandbag forward before landing) Loading 650 lbs of sandbags might break you, but not the stall.
8. Tested to 210 knots TAS while wearing a parachute just in case. Only problem noticed at that speed is the rear side vents open themselves.

Things I love:
1. The plane. :)
2. The Aerosport overhead console & stien vents. Expensive vents, but they seal tight, lots of air provided, great place to run wires and antenna, and looks great.
3. Planearound center latch.
4. EFIS/AP. Wow is all I can say. I have the G3X, and I'm sure other modern ones I would also be happy with, I never had an AP in a plane before and with the combination EFIS/AP it is amazing how much easier IFR flight is.
5. VP-X. Maybe it is just the computer geek in me but installing it was really easy, directions great, and love how much it tells me and the ability to re-configure easily.
4. Building. I am already thinking about building again. Won't happen for a few years, but already thinking about it.

Great summary/review. Now I'm wondering about my rudder pedal location, but will have to wait til seats are installed. I guess I'll have to re-think the list of things I was thinking of putting off til later, as they don't affect being able to fly...Thanks!

==dave==

Nice write up Bill!

Bill,

Did your main buss short disable the pitch trim? Any difficulties with landing?

Thanks Bill..
 

For your COMM whips, where did you install them (bottom or top of the plane)? I'm wondering, if you have both COMM whips on the bottom of the RV-10, do you have problems talking with the tower on the ground?

I have a bent whip under the rear passenger's seat, and have had trouble talking to the tower when on the ground once or twice. Usually just turning 40 degrees fixes the issue, or I switch to my Archer clone wingtip com which works fine (in the air the Archer is not as good as the whip but better than most others seem to report).

Thanks for taking the time to write this up Bill. I'm approaching 75 hours and still working a couple bugs out. I've been telling a friend that it seems like the first 6 months is devoted to learning the airplane and working out the little issues. My issues have been minor and I'll add them here to aid others reading this thread. A quick summary would be:
1) Door sensors: the reed switches were installed and adjusted with too little fudge factor. 3 of the 4 needed adjustment after I would receive a "door open" indication when the door was actually closed. Annoying but easy to fix on the field
2) Gemini PFD: I wasn't receiving GPS info from the GTN750. Mis-wired by the avionics shop and quickly fixed.
3) ADS-B: seemingly working well but FAA wasn't seeing the "out". Found out the avionics shop accidentally didn't wire it to the GTN but rather the non-certified AFS GPS. Will be fixed with 1 hour of under-panel time. (Panel builders did an awesome job aside from these two minor issues :)
4) Nose wheel breakout force: Originally set to 26 lbs per factory/manual. Was found to be 6 lbs after 60 hrs! Quickly tightened and adjusted
5) RPM sensor: The AFS sensor is giving erratic readings lately. I'm diagnosing this as we speak
6) Strobe whine: Very subtle but I'll address it shortly. Like Bill said, it's hard to address the little stuff when you have a plane to fly :)
7) 55W HID taxi light: Has burnt out twice (with the VP-X quickly indicating the burned bulb! Love that!). Possible a bad batch of bulbs from 3 yrs ago. Duckworks has sent one that seems to be working.
8) Aerosport Products Servo Controller: had an odd issue with two controllers failing. Likely a problem with the install location causing a short. Geoff was great and remedied the issue quickly.
9) Fuel spider: found a seep at the spider around 25 hours. This was the spider sent from Lycoming on a new engine. Removed, sealed and has been flawless since

I wouldn't do much differently next time as I'm thrilled with my setup and decisions made. A 3 blade prop would be smooth, quiet, and sexy but I can't justify the price difference and speed loss. Sun visors would be a nice addition and may come at annual. The AFS systems are amazing and paired with the GTN750 and the autopilot, I feel like I'm flying a 777! The situational awareness for IFR flight is the best I've ever seen or flown behind.

All that said, it's an absolute pleasure to fly and an amazing airplane. The performance is incredible and the avionics capabilities are amazing. The small issues have been annoying but understanble considering this is a one-off, customized airplane with a lot of bells and whistles.

Great info, Bill!

Yes it did no trim or flaps, and no, no problem landing. Trim was set to cruise at the time.

I did have a problem just out of phase 1, where the trim got set to full nose up pitch on the ground, and it was missed on the pre-takeoff checklist (before I had setup my EFIS checklists) It was a quick fuel stop and I was letting a buddy fly from right seat. Once noticed in climbout, the trim would not respond. I took control from my friend, and flew the pattern and landed. Flying a long distance would have worn me out that way as it took significant pressure against the stick, but had no problem overpowering it and landing it.

Another note that I thought about is I installed a spring rudder trim. It is nice as it holds the rudder against light winds, but I don't really ever use it in flight. the 10 takes some rudder in a climbout, but level flight or cruise climbs the ball is centered (level flight) or near enough centered (cruise climb) that it is not needed.

I have not yet installed my second whip antenna. That is one of my todo items. The doubler I have already in place for it is on the top. My existing comm 1 antenna is on the bottom under the passenger seat. Comm 2 is still currently an Archer antenna in the wingtip, but will be a whip on the top to try to not have any crosstalk.

I don't have any problem talking with tower or ground with comm 1 on the bottom currently.