ColoRv
Well Known Member
On Friday 3-14, the culmination of 21 months of hard labor finally carried its own weight.
There are many people that helped along the way and I owe a dept to all of them. In particular though, there are three people without whom this day would have been much delayed or never at all. Scott Taylor whose help and heckling during the build was absolutely selfless, constant and much appreciated. Scott and his 12 thousand hours of flight time also keeps my Ready, Fire, Aim tendency in check. Jim Gray who donates his time and advice like they are in endless supply and whose gorgeous plane is always available for me to pattern mine after. Jim is also Flight Lead of the Renegades formation team and a constant source of much needed advice. And last but not least, Ryan Bendure my all things aircraft guru who keeps me from building anything dangerous....a task that is far too demanding of his time. Thank you gentlemen! Special thanks to Scott Taylor, Jim Gray, Sean Thomas and Bob Markert as my first flight ground crew and videographers as well. Bob also owns the gorgeous hangar I've had the pleasure of finishing up in.
951WT flew beautifully. In an orbit within gliding distance of the runway, under the class B and low enough to break in the engine...I was turning so often it's impossible to give any speeds yet (despite tweaking Jim a bit . But I didn't feel anything odd as far as heavy wings or anything. I'll know more when I venture away from the nest.
Flight was 1.2hr with the majority of that wide open for engine breakin. CHT's never crested 325 and oil temp stayed at 182 thanks to the cold Denver morning. Engine is an angle valve built by Ryan and I, 10:1 Lycon, Pmags, Superior sump driving a Whirlwind RV74. All worked wonderfully. Radios messed with me a bit as the GTN650 was breaking squelch like mad (turned up the automatic squelch in config) and the PAR100 had a squelch issue as well so I couldn't hear my ground team making fun of me. The PAR's squelch adjustment isn't intuitive for me at all, so it didn't get adjusted until I was back in the barn and had the book in hand. Typical first flight pilot error, not familiar enough with my own equipment. Still, chose to fly the plane and ignore the small stuff.
My first landing was a wheel landing. I have to admit, I'm struggling a bit with the touchiness of the RV8 rudder and the tailwheel rocket link. The mains touched down beautifully but as speed bled off, I was inducing a bit of tail waggle. As the tail was coming down, I just didn't like what I was seeing so I went around. On the second attempt (and the second ATC ridiculously long extended downwind) the mains again planted nicely but this time my feet listened to my brain a bit better and the first flight ended. Those pedals will take some getting used to.
All in all, first flight was an overwhelming success. Hindsight being 20/20 though, I see a couple of errors I made that mentioning here may save others the embarrassment. First, not being familiar enough with the PAR100's rather odd volume and squelch controls kept one of my radios out of the fight and left my ground crews advice unheard. Second, with a brand new engine in a brand new plane, I shouldn't have allowed ATC to extend my downwinds over half the city. I stayed at pattern altitude and stayed fast...but there is zero chance I would have made the airport had the engine failed. My engine felt amazing the entire flight and that induced some confidence that I would have been better advised to avoid. Had my second radio been available, I likely would have heard that advice from my ground crew. I suspect they were none to pleased that I extended so far.
Pics and vids haven't all arrived from my awesome ground crew yet, but I'll post some when they do.
There are many people that helped along the way and I owe a dept to all of them. In particular though, there are three people without whom this day would have been much delayed or never at all. Scott Taylor whose help and heckling during the build was absolutely selfless, constant and much appreciated. Scott and his 12 thousand hours of flight time also keeps my Ready, Fire, Aim tendency in check. Jim Gray who donates his time and advice like they are in endless supply and whose gorgeous plane is always available for me to pattern mine after. Jim is also Flight Lead of the Renegades formation team and a constant source of much needed advice. And last but not least, Ryan Bendure my all things aircraft guru who keeps me from building anything dangerous....a task that is far too demanding of his time. Thank you gentlemen! Special thanks to Scott Taylor, Jim Gray, Sean Thomas and Bob Markert as my first flight ground crew and videographers as well. Bob also owns the gorgeous hangar I've had the pleasure of finishing up in.
951WT flew beautifully. In an orbit within gliding distance of the runway, under the class B and low enough to break in the engine...I was turning so often it's impossible to give any speeds yet (despite tweaking Jim a bit . But I didn't feel anything odd as far as heavy wings or anything. I'll know more when I venture away from the nest.
Flight was 1.2hr with the majority of that wide open for engine breakin. CHT's never crested 325 and oil temp stayed at 182 thanks to the cold Denver morning. Engine is an angle valve built by Ryan and I, 10:1 Lycon, Pmags, Superior sump driving a Whirlwind RV74. All worked wonderfully. Radios messed with me a bit as the GTN650 was breaking squelch like mad (turned up the automatic squelch in config) and the PAR100 had a squelch issue as well so I couldn't hear my ground team making fun of me. The PAR's squelch adjustment isn't intuitive for me at all, so it didn't get adjusted until I was back in the barn and had the book in hand. Typical first flight pilot error, not familiar enough with my own equipment. Still, chose to fly the plane and ignore the small stuff.
My first landing was a wheel landing. I have to admit, I'm struggling a bit with the touchiness of the RV8 rudder and the tailwheel rocket link. The mains touched down beautifully but as speed bled off, I was inducing a bit of tail waggle. As the tail was coming down, I just didn't like what I was seeing so I went around. On the second attempt (and the second ATC ridiculously long extended downwind) the mains again planted nicely but this time my feet listened to my brain a bit better and the first flight ended. Those pedals will take some getting used to.
All in all, first flight was an overwhelming success. Hindsight being 20/20 though, I see a couple of errors I made that mentioning here may save others the embarrassment. First, not being familiar enough with the PAR100's rather odd volume and squelch controls kept one of my radios out of the fight and left my ground crews advice unheard. Second, with a brand new engine in a brand new plane, I shouldn't have allowed ATC to extend my downwinds over half the city. I stayed at pattern altitude and stayed fast...but there is zero chance I would have made the airport had the engine failed. My engine felt amazing the entire flight and that induced some confidence that I would have been better advised to avoid. Had my second radio been available, I likely would have heard that advice from my ground crew. I suspect they were none to pleased that I extended so far.
Pics and vids haven't all arrived from my awesome ground crew yet, but I'll post some when they do.
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