fly.more.work.less
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At 4pm, Sunday 4th September (Father's Day in Australia) my Blue Angel and I slipped the surly bonds of Earth and completed a circuit around Jandakot Airport (Perth, Australia). Haven't stopped smiling since! Happy to report a very smooth wheeler landing, and no issues whatsoever (other than hitting my head on the canopy 'cause there were too many cushions). She goes like stink, but is amazingly light and responsive on the controls. Wow!
The journey started back in March, with an impulsive decision after seeing the plane advertised in the VAF classifieds. I loved the paint scheme so much that I was hooked immediately. Following an inspection, I made an offer, and the process began. It took a while to get her from California to Perth, arriving here in early June. I've been assisted by the fantastic folks from Chapter 24 of the Sport Aircraft Association of Australia, based at Jandakot, and received the Certificate of Airworthiness last Monday (August 29th), with new registration VH-EZM (formerly N124CB).
While I instruct in Jabiru LSA aircraft, I had no tailwheel time at the start of all this, so spent some time in a Decathlon learning the art. An hour in the back seat of an RV-4 on Saturday left me with no further excuses. The wife and kids came to the airport and waited patiently while I checked a million things and made noises from within the cockpit. While apprehensive, I figured it was 'now or never', and headed out, advising the tower that it was my first flight on type: they were very accomodating to my request for 'maximum separation' in the circuit (it's a very busy airfield, eight a/c in the circuit is not uncommon).
After waiting several minutes for a suitable gap, I lined up, and had maybe 20 seconds to 'get the picture' burned into my brain before receiving clearance to roll. As the power came on, she really got going, and I made a slight check forward on the stick to bring up the tail. Perhaps not so wise, as I got a fair bit of oscillation happening, so gentley pulled back and she lifted off the ground before the throttle was at maximum. I levelled out, got to around 80kts, and then began the climb out. Wow! It would have been less than 15 seconds before I was at 700', but wasn't able to turn base as the preceeding aircraft had yet to pass me on it's downwind leg. Levelling out at 1000', and bringing the power back, I turned onto crosswind, checked guages (all good), and watched the speed build quickly to 120kts. More power back (below 2000RPM), I got her to <100kts, scanned the instruments again, sighted the previous a/c and called downwind. Magic! Adjacent to touchdown, a little more power off, slowed her to 85kts, lowered flaps, re-trimmed, and continued before turning onto base once happy with separation from the proceeding aircraft. I continued to slow to around 80kts before turning final, applied more flap, slowed her some more, and then went full flaps at around 300'. Deep breath, concentrate. Received clearance to land, got everything straight, smooth power applications to keep the speed steady, I was over the runway before I knew it. Small amounts of backpressure, power off, flying level and raising the nose until she touched down gently on the mains with a high nose-up attitude. Small check forward, confirmed at idle, she settled nicely onto the tail (big smile!), a little brake ... taxiway approaching fast, nah, we'll roll through to the next one as the brakes were recently honed and had new pads, don't want to test them too hard ... Got a fair bit of shimmy from the mains when I applied power (was expecting this), so just slowed it right down and taxied slowly (expecting a call from the tower to expedite, but it never happened). Off the runway, taxiied home, shut down, canopy open, GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR!
I couldn't be happier and am proud to call myself the owner of an RV-3
Alexis.
p.s. there's a very shaky video taken by the wife on YouTube; quality is not so good, but it's nice to have the memory on record!
The journey started back in March, with an impulsive decision after seeing the plane advertised in the VAF classifieds. I loved the paint scheme so much that I was hooked immediately. Following an inspection, I made an offer, and the process began. It took a while to get her from California to Perth, arriving here in early June. I've been assisted by the fantastic folks from Chapter 24 of the Sport Aircraft Association of Australia, based at Jandakot, and received the Certificate of Airworthiness last Monday (August 29th), with new registration VH-EZM (formerly N124CB).
While I instruct in Jabiru LSA aircraft, I had no tailwheel time at the start of all this, so spent some time in a Decathlon learning the art. An hour in the back seat of an RV-4 on Saturday left me with no further excuses. The wife and kids came to the airport and waited patiently while I checked a million things and made noises from within the cockpit. While apprehensive, I figured it was 'now or never', and headed out, advising the tower that it was my first flight on type: they were very accomodating to my request for 'maximum separation' in the circuit (it's a very busy airfield, eight a/c in the circuit is not uncommon).
After waiting several minutes for a suitable gap, I lined up, and had maybe 20 seconds to 'get the picture' burned into my brain before receiving clearance to roll. As the power came on, she really got going, and I made a slight check forward on the stick to bring up the tail. Perhaps not so wise, as I got a fair bit of oscillation happening, so gentley pulled back and she lifted off the ground before the throttle was at maximum. I levelled out, got to around 80kts, and then began the climb out. Wow! It would have been less than 15 seconds before I was at 700', but wasn't able to turn base as the preceeding aircraft had yet to pass me on it's downwind leg. Levelling out at 1000', and bringing the power back, I turned onto crosswind, checked guages (all good), and watched the speed build quickly to 120kts. More power back (below 2000RPM), I got her to <100kts, scanned the instruments again, sighted the previous a/c and called downwind. Magic! Adjacent to touchdown, a little more power off, slowed her to 85kts, lowered flaps, re-trimmed, and continued before turning onto base once happy with separation from the proceeding aircraft. I continued to slow to around 80kts before turning final, applied more flap, slowed her some more, and then went full flaps at around 300'. Deep breath, concentrate. Received clearance to land, got everything straight, smooth power applications to keep the speed steady, I was over the runway before I knew it. Small amounts of backpressure, power off, flying level and raising the nose until she touched down gently on the mains with a high nose-up attitude. Small check forward, confirmed at idle, she settled nicely onto the tail (big smile!), a little brake ... taxiway approaching fast, nah, we'll roll through to the next one as the brakes were recently honed and had new pads, don't want to test them too hard ... Got a fair bit of shimmy from the mains when I applied power (was expecting this), so just slowed it right down and taxied slowly (expecting a call from the tower to expedite, but it never happened). Off the runway, taxiied home, shut down, canopy open, GRIN FROM EAR TO EAR!
I couldn't be happier and am proud to call myself the owner of an RV-3
Alexis.
p.s. there's a very shaky video taken by the wife on YouTube; quality is not so good, but it's nice to have the memory on record!
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