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Another RV-8 takes to the Denver skies

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.
 
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Bill,

Congrats on all the hard work and the first flight!

You will get use the the touchiness of the controls, but at the same time like it on a windy day when you need that controllability :D

Have fun !
 
Congrats!
I'm just ahead of you! I'm still amazed at the feel of the RV-8!
Yes I find the rudder pedals and especially the brakes sensitive at touch down. Still, it tracks straight and honest, even if the brakes have chirped because my feet were too high on the pedals.
I also find my "8" to be very forgiving in the touch down mode, with stable pitch attitude if I bounce a bit or land on a humpy grass strip. I think it's called 'The Spitfire Dance'. I've been doing 'tail low wheels landings'.
I'm flying with the CG about 1/3 back from the forward limit, must be the sweet spot?
My first flights were shorter than yours, but the same idea: circle the runway under the class B shelf. Lotsa turns, lotsa planning for any emergency that never happened. :p
As Mark F. would say: "Carry On!"
 
Flying the 8

Bill,
You will get use to the rudder and the brakes in the 8. They are really just the way you want them to be. I mean, "Right there" when you need them. Don't be afraid to set her down in a more level attitude, and to feed in the elevator to keep her there until the decreasing airspeed caused the tail to settle. With time and experience, you can even lightly brake while up on the step further lowering the speed that the tailwheel touches. I do this all the time to make the midfield turnoff at taxiway bravo "B"right in front of hanger 8 at 52F.

Some builders have modified their RV-8 brakes to prevent unwanted braking, but I really advise against this. The pads cost about $11 dollars each at Spruce and Specialty. That's just $44 dollars to reline the brakes. I do it ever year at conditional inspection, not worrying about the unused portion of my pads. I start each year with !00% wear remaining. I've never come close to hitting the rivets with the rotors.

It is important to have quick access to the RV-8's powerful rudder and braking system. On a windy day in April, returning from Sun-N-Fun, I landed with a 30 Knot gusty direct crosswind, and was able to remain on the centerline with lots of rudder, and plenty of chirping coming from the tires. Like the Boeing 727, I then declared that the Doll's crosswind limit was 29 knots! Thank you Van for the best RV design ever!
 
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Way to go Bill!

I was on vacation with the family until today, so this is news to me. I would have loved to see it happen. Congrats on the first flight, and also on winning the bet with Ron. I'm sure he's right behind you. :)
 
Congratulations!

I too found the rocket link a little touchy at first. I went back to the screen door chains for the first 100 or so landings until I was comfortable then back to the rocket link which I now really like.
 
Billiam, I've never seen anyone work as hard, or as determined as you were, to get that airplane of yours in the air! Excellent job, you have a beautiful FLYING RV-8 now. First flight was perfect...... we'll almost. ;-) We don't need no stinkin' flaps!

CONGRATS!! Well done!

Jim Gray
N747JG RV-8
www.rmrairshows.com
 
Well, all of you were right of course. I'm still in engine break in phase so haven't done any pattern work at all...only one landing per flight. Still, after the first 2 landings, the rudder feel was second nature. Once I got a full length taxi in, the 'touchiness' went away. What I had to learn was dancing on the pedals as one does with chains...does nothing but upset the aircraft (and pilot). I really like the feel now. She has had 9 hours of flight.....and just gets better with each one.

A few words on the equipment I put in my project. The G3X is nothing short of amazing to me. Very capable. The comm on the GTN650 is also very nice, though I find myself wondering if I wouldn't have been happier with at least one comm that the G3X could push a frequency to. It's easy to get the GTN to find its own frequencies though and when I'm using it for IFR, I'm sure it will be worth its weight in gold.

The PAR100ex has one feature I really like, being able to turn down the XM volume without going into a G3X menu...but other than that, I'm not real excited about that piece of my panel. It saved some space, but it just feels flimsy in comparison to everything else in reach (most of it Garmin). It also won't accept a frequency from the G3X which being experimental in nature is absurd. If I were to do it again, I would replace the PAR with Garmin's GTR200 and a separate audio panel. Though with Garmin's new touch screens and remote radios....my entire platform is obsolete. I still love it. The Dynon D6 as a backup is perfect in that role.

I have an EI Commander watching over the dual Pmags. The first commander died rather quickly and was replaced by the manufacturer. The replacement has been good thus far, though admiitedly I've touched it very little. In appearance, it falls a bit short because of the Garmin perfection that surrounds it and the menu's are laid out rather oddly as well, difficult to learn even for a tech geek engineer like myself. Still, something watching my Pmags gives me piece of mind.

The angle valve Ryan Bendure and I built has been nothing short of fantastic. Smooth and powerful. The Whirlwind 74RV is pulling me through the air within a couple knots of 185 TAS everytime I look down to check. Love it. Thanks Ryan!

Duckworks square 75w HID's were a monumental failure. The noise out of them is shocking for an aviation product. I'm replacing them with Rigid's PAR36's in round, which would have been done by now except I'm still waiting for Duckworks round lamp conversion bracket. Sean, the hangar rows resident genius warned me about the noise....I should have listened.

Vertical Power's VPX....love it. The power wiring took a weekend... I would buy another VPX in a heartbeat. Single point of failure...absolutely. Never heard of one failing though.

Abby's at Flightline's leather work looks awesome! I sent her a sketch on a napkin and she nailed it.

Thats all I can think of for now. Pound those rivets!
 
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