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First Flight of N5771H

bruceh

Well Known Member
Today was the day. The weather cleared up around noon and my RV-9A took to the skies for the first time!

Look at that! Air under the wheels.
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OMG! Me flying an airplane I built in my garage! :eek:
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After about 20 minutes orbiting the field, checking the flight controls, engine temps and doing some slow flight with flaps down, I think my brain was getting overloaded. Time to land.
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Down at last, and in one piece. Never mind the centerline. :p
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Time for the RV Grin with the family.
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My youngest daughter (on the right) surprised us last night by showing up for Easter weekend. She secretly flew in from Colorado. What a treat!
There is video of the flight, but it may be a while before that gets edited and posted. Maybe I can get my son to put something together, since it was his GoPro I borrowed.

Many thanks to Van's, Doug and everyone on VAF who made this journey possible (especially all of the wonderful vendors and the collective wisdom therein).
This wouldn't have happened without the support of my family and friends.
Thanks to all of the RV guys at Ramona and the greater SoCal/NorCal area.
Thanks to Dan Thompson for offering at the eleventh hour to be my chase pilot and letting my daughter fly along and take these pictures.

Whew! Still GRINNING :D
 
Way to go Bruce, Congratulations! Look forward to the video and more reports on your phase 1 flight testing. Stay safe.
 
Bruce, Congratulations my friend!

It's a great feeling, isn't it? The second flight is even better!

What a wonderful day. Enjoy the moment! Well done!

(Surely you'll make the front page tomorrow. Right, Doug?)
 
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Congrats

Congrats Bruce.

Thanks for letting me be part of the big day. It was really cool seeing the 'RV Grin' in person!

Now get back in the air and get that Phase 1 flown off so you can join the SOCAL rat pack for some breakfast runs!


Dan
 
Congratulations!

Time for the RV Grin with the family.
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Bruce,
I'm looking at this picture and I'm not sure which is sweeter... flying your brand new RV, or being surrounded by all those beautiful women. You're totally outnumbered! And I'm not sure that's a bad thing! :D

Anyway, congratulations! I'll be very interested in your phase 1 comments, reports, and experiences.
 
Bruce- Congrats on the first flight. Well done. When I saw your plane under construction, I assumed you would get to this day and be a sucess. The quality of your build was apparent. All that hard work paid off with a good first flight, and smiles all around in your RV Grin photo. Nice job. Be safe. Have fun. Treat phase one as a chance to get to know your plane and work through collecting all the data and test flying that you need. Enjoy sir, you have earned it!
 
!!!!!

Bruce,

Great news! I have been waiting for your announcement. When I saw it I got goosebumps because it won't be much longer before my first flight and I could feel the excitement of your day. It's great that your family was able to be there. Now, get as much as you can out of Phase I.
 
Second flight done! Grin 2.0

Wonderful weather today, so time to fly again.

Had a bad mag check on the first try during the runup, so back to the hangar and pulled the cowl. Having the engine data on the Dynon is great. I knew exactly which sparkplug to pull and clean. Second time is the charm. I took off and flew 1.1 hours in a racetrack pattern over the field at 3000'. This time I was able to slow down sufficiently in the pattern and did a good landing, so that was nice. I still need to get the speeds dialed in for approach and landing.

Derek (Dbro172) caught this picture of my take off.
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Still having COM issues... :mad: Time to swap out the antenna and get the watt meter on there to see what is going on. I can't be heard on ground frequency 121.65, but can be heard on tower 119.875. I get great reception on all frequencies. It will have to wait a week, since I'm off on business travel all next week.

On the first flight I turned on the APRS, but didn't get anything reported. Today I did the same, but got this.
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Better, but not great, since I did about a dozen laps over the field.

After the flight I helped Derek get his wings installed on his RV-9A for the first time.
 
first Flight

Congrats Bruce - been following your build and you certainly have a sweet ride. Look forward to doing a couple hundred dollar hamburger runs with you.:cool:

Jim
 
Very nice!! Great to have a fellow RV'er as a chase plane, and to get those cool in-flight photos. Have you wiped the Perma-grin off your face yet??
 
Mine was just over a month ago...so I know the feeling as its still fresh in my mind, congrats! Great pic of you turning final. Enjoy phase I.
 
Congrats, Bruce! I've been following your build and it's great to see it in the air. Great motivation for me to keep building.

Cheers! :D
 
Great job, Bruce. I hope to be about a month behind you. Inspection in the next week or two. The fun stuff starts for you now. Enjoy.
 
Congrats

Great job Bruce. I've been following your build closely as I am about 7 or 8 months behind you on my 9A project. Keep flying and smiling.
 
Congratulations, Bruce!

I've consulted your excellent builder website on many occasions when I was puzzled about details in building my RV-9A. I'm about 3 months behind you in the build. Enjoy Phase 1.
 
Really nice! Please keep your website online, because I am using it frequently as a reference to build mine :)
 
congrats

Bruce
Congrats on the first flight!
Now you can bring it over to Lenhardts for coffee and
show it off!
Good job!
Jim Frisbie
RV-9A 350 hrs.
 
Very nice

Bruce!
Well done! The air up there looks great, and your airplane looks even better! :cool:
 
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