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First Flight Report RV-8, N814DP

davep1969

Member
The day finally arrived on Saturday Sept 26. I flew my intended first flight route in the afternoon in the Cessna 170 to check conditions and winds, All looked good. My chase plane and pilot arrived at 4 PM and all was ready. I had a Go Pro strapped to my helmet and an onboard video camera on the top of the vertical stab. My goal was to climb out to 3,000 feet, assure all was stable and not spewing any fluids or smoke. Set up a 75% power setting to help seat the new piston rings to cylinder walls. It would require engine rpm at 2500 for most of the flight. My ground crew and chase plane were ready (Cessna 185). At approximately 4:15 I started the engine and taxied to the departure end, pre take off checks complete, taxi into position, chase plane positioned on my left would take off from the grass as soon as I applied power. Full throttle, keep it straight and let it fly off. Lift off smooth now look for 700 feet before making a turn, 700 feet start left turn and climb, keep speed around 100-110 in climb for best cooling. Another left turn and flying downwind climbing, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 level here. Change frequencies for air to air communications with chase plane. All looks good behind me no fluids no smoke. Aircraft stable engine indications normal. Set up cruise climb to 3,000 feet leaving the chase plane. Speed now up to 150 and POP! The engine oil door on the top cowling right in front of the wind screen popped open in flight but is staying put not buzzing around like it wants to get ripped off. Advise chase plane and he asks if we should abort. No it looks like it will be fine just sitting there open. I backed off a little on power running about 2350 RPM. The airplane starts to buck a little like it is struggling a little. Whats going on all cockpit indications look normal, look out at the wings, Holy **** the flaps have fully deployed. Quickly get to the up switch and get the flaps up. They come up to fully retracted position and the airplane likes that. Max flap deployment speed is 100 and that was at about 150. Okay make a note, my hi-tech take care of its self flap system is going to be changed. It?s located next to the throttle on the left console and I must have rested my left hand there next to the throttle and activated it. I will change to a simple toggle. Okay at the farthest from the home airport now in a big 25 mile circle, turn back towards the home airport and pick up the chase plane again. RPM get it up closer to 2500 and the speed is now 175 to 180 mph. This sucker is FAST. And that?s with no landing gear fairings and wheel pants, add another 15 % onto top speed when those are installed. Back over head of home airport 3500 feet, make a turn for a second lap. Everything normal. Second 25 mile lap goes uneventful and soon closing in on home airport again. Chase plane now on my right and will pass below and to my left as I slow the airplane for slow flight maneuvers prior to first landing. Chase plane gets some close up air to air shots and returns to home airport to land prior to me. Airplane handles fine at approach speeds full flaps (intentionally). Clean it up and descend for pattern entry. Down to 1000 feet in the pattern, slowed to 125 in pattern, abeam touch down reduce power, trim with flaps, final 85, a little low add a bit of power, okay got it made now over the fence, land on the grass as it is a little more forgiving than the pavement, throttle closed, get closer, level, slower, nose up, a little more, keep it straight winds not a factor, TOUCHDOWN watch roll out keep it straight no brakes just yet. Ok add some braking action, you got it, turn 180 on the grass and taxi back for the reception group gathered to witness. Canopy open, big GRIN. Success.

Mike Seager had suggested 50 lbs of ballast in the rear baggage compartment and that put the CG exactly in the center of the envelope. The airplane handled really sweet. Touchdown was a nearly perfect 3 point with little bounce.

My son took all the onboard video and still shots taken and combined into a 13 minute video production. Its cool but big, over 1 GB. If I can figure out how to share I will post a link. It was a great day and a great flight.
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Cheers!

Congrats Dave!

Love the pic! I will have a cooler of cold ones when my bird finally leaves the ground as well!
 
Excellent.
Still love your paint scheme.
Looking forward to the video if you figure a way to get it hosted somewhere.
 
Ok, it looks like son Ryan has got the first flight video posted on YouTube. Link follows. Total flight duration was about 42 minutes, the video he put together lasts 13 minutes and has both pre-takeoff and post landing segments. He told me he spent 13 hours assembling this video with soundtrack, cutting and pasting, about 1 hour per minute. It is hard for me to keep a dry eye when I watch it knowing the time I spent dreaming about this day. A big accomplishment. If you read the first flight report description about inadvertent flap deployment, you can see that in the tail camera at 16:35 in the display clock. And then my quick look out the canopy at the flaps and getting them back up. We were wired to record the cockpit radio transmissions but something was not plugged all the way in as we did not record any. It would have been interesting to review my comments. I know several times I was talking to the chase plane and then realized I had not pulled the transmit trigger on the stick so I was just talking to myself. (I do that sometimes anyway)

Hope you like the video Ryan put together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzo18FoQYzo&feature=youtu.be
 
Congrats ! An 8, what else ?

It's always better to stay in the cooler area for the first fly ;)

Enjoy the tests of YOUR airplane !
 
Outstanding!

Congratulations! Great paint scheme. Great Video. Great job!

You are going to love flying your new plane.
 
Way to go

The day finally arrived on Saturday Sept 26. I flew my intended first flight route in the afternoon in the Cessna 170 to check conditions and winds, All looked good. My chase plane and pilot arrived at 4 PM and all was ready. I had a Go Pro strapped to my helmet and an onboard video camera on the top of the vertical stab. My goal was to climb out to 3,000 feet, assure all was stable and not spewing any fluids or smoke. Set up a 75% power setting to help seat the new piston rings to cylinder walls. It would require engine rpm at 2500 for most of the flight. My ground crew and chase plane were ready (Cessna 185). At approximately 4:15 I started the engine and taxied to the departure end, pre take off checks complete, taxi into position, chase plane positioned on my left would take off from the grass as soon as I applied power. Full throttle, keep it straight and let it fly off. Lift off smooth now look for 700 feet before making a turn, 700 feet start left turn and climb, keep speed around 100-110 in climb for best cooling. Another left turn and flying downwind climbing, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 level here. Change frequencies for air to air communications with chase plane. All looks good behind me no fluids no smoke. Aircraft stable engine indications normal. Set up cruise climb to 3,000 feet leaving the chase plane. Speed now up to 150 and POP! The engine oil door on the top cowling right in front of the wind screen popped open in flight but is staying put not buzzing around like it wants to get ripped off. Advise chase plane and he asks if we should abort. No it looks like it will be fine just sitting there open. I backed off a little on power running about 2350 RPM. The airplane starts to buck a little like it is struggling a little. Whats going on all cockpit indications look normal, look out at the wings, Holy **** the flaps have fully deployed. Quickly get to the up switch and get the flaps up. They come up to fully retracted position and the airplane likes that. Max flap deployment speed is 100 and that was at about 150. Okay make a note, my hi-tech take care of its self flap system is going to be changed. It?s located next to the throttle on the left console and I must have rested my left hand there next to the throttle and activated it. I will change to a simple toggle. Okay at the farthest from the home airport now in a big 25 mile circle, turn back towards the home airport and pick up the chase plane again. RPM get it up closer to 2500 and the speed is now 175 to 180 mph. This sucker is FAST. And that?s with no landing gear fairings and wheel pants, add another 15 % onto top speed when those are installed. Back over head of home airport 3500 feet, make a turn for a second lap. Everything normal. Second 25 mile lap goes uneventful and soon closing in on home airport again. Chase plane now on my right and will pass below and to my left as I slow the airplane for slow flight maneuvers prior to first landing. Chase plane gets some close up air to air shots and returns to home airport to land prior to me. Airplane handles fine at approach speeds full flaps (intentionally). Clean it up and descend for pattern entry. Down to 1000 feet in the pattern, slowed to 125 in pattern, abeam touch down reduce power, trim with flaps, final 85, a little low add a bit of power, okay got it made now over the fence, land on the grass as it is a little more forgiving than the pavement, throttle closed, get closer, level, slower, nose up, a little more, keep it straight winds not a factor, TOUCHDOWN watch roll out keep it straight no brakes just yet. Ok add some braking action, you got it, turn 180 on the grass and taxi back for the reception group gathered to witness. Canopy open, big GRIN. Success.

Mike Seager had suggested 50 lbs of ballast in the rear baggage compartment and that put the CG exactly in the center of the envelope. The airplane handled really sweet. Touchdown was a nearly perfect 3 point with little bounce.

My son took all the onboard video and still shots taken and combined into a 13 minute video production. Its cool but big, over 1 GB. If I can figure out how to share I will post a link. It was a great day and a great flight.
IMG_9575_zps0tu9j8li.jpg
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Way to plan your flight , then fly your plan.
Daddyman
 
Excellent! Congratulations! She looks beautiful. Can't wait till I'm sharing mine... in a couple years.
 
Oil door popped

What did your CHT's do when the oil door opened, dumping all that cooling air?

Congrats,

Pierre,

Initially I was thinking the same thing but the oil door is actually aft of the rear engine baffle and should be in the "low" pressure side of the engine compartment. CHTs were not affected. I can't tell you exactly what they were running as I was negligent in recording all of that. I just know that they were all registering high green low yellow on the Skyview and that was enough information for me on the first flight. I made the door out of 0.032 aluminum and I am assuming the combination of the inside pressure and the outside lower pressure caused it to bow enough to disengage the single latch on the bottom of the door. You can see it bowed in the video before it pops open. I did not notice the bowing until the door actually popped. I have since added a fiberglass and aluminum doubler to the inside of the door to stiffen but have test flown the second flight yet. Possibly Wednesday or Thursday of this week.
 
Nice first!

Great pics and great tale on the first flight. I am hoping to do mine sometime in july next year and it was great to read your story.

Congrats
 
A big congrats!! I love the air-to-air shot....if there's one that's super sharp, it's a natural for the Van's calendar.
 
Congratulations Dave...Nicely planned flight and a well done video. I especially liked the touch of taking along the dog tags.
Be safe and enjoy every flight.
 
Nice Touch

Especially nice are the "T-28" exhaust stripes! (But was that not VT5 at Saufley?)
Congratulations on completing the task!:D
 
Dave,

Congrats in persevering to finish your -8. What an incredible gift from LCDR Cochran.

You're son's video is top notch too!
 
T-28 Exhaust

Especially nice are the "T-28" exhaust stripes! (But was that not VT5 at Saufley?)
Congratulations on completing the task!:D

Oh you are correct. In 1975 VT-5 and VT-1 both flew the T-34 at Saufley but I believe earlier years they did fly the T28. In 1975, in my recollection, the Basic Prop training was at Whiting Field with the T28. We just could not resist to big black stripe, shark mouth and the Sundowners tail treatment (VF-111). Of course no T-34s had crew names. Artistic freedoms on your own aircraft. We strove for marking accuracies but deviated where it looked good. :)
 
CONGRATS

Dave,

Congrats! Looks really nice.

If you don't mind me asking...what engine and prop are you running?

Thanks,
Dan
 
Engine and Prop

Dave,

Congrats! Looks really nice.

If you don't mind me asking...what engine and prop are you running?

Thanks,
Dan

Dan,

Lycoming O360A1F6D with Catto fixed pitch 3 blade composite over wood core. The Lycoming Engine is originally configured for a single drive pad dual mag. Running dual Lightspeed Engineering electronic ignition. It runs really smooth.

Dave
 
Second flight in the books

After maintenance from first flight, stiffening oil level door, and correcting an electrical problem created by me, the second flight accomplished today. 1.3 hours total with 1.0 hrs running 25 squared resulted in 175 to 185 indicated. For Pierre, CHTs, max 425F on #3 on climb out, in cruise at 3,000 feet 385 for highest cylinders and 360 for lowest. Ran smooth, flew hands off stable, no issues. Landed a little hot and long but I'll get the hang of it. Total time 2.0, 5% of Phase one complete. OOh Rah!
 
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