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N614EF: The little plane that almost couldn't

Bob,
Congrats . Well done .
No one can take it away. One of 30K to build and fly own airplane .
Remember talking with you, Darwin ,Chad,Brad , etc at POG 05. WOW .
TIME FLYS when you are having fun.
Looking for another project now myself.

PRESS ON as said by Chuck Yeager.
 
Jerry at Trio Avionics (three of my best Oshkosh friends) also put the Oshkosh bug in the ear. I'm not sure I can get her there and I'm so spoiled by being able to bring a bunch of STUFF via car to Oshkosh, I'm not sure I'd know how to limit it to the "one change of underwear and a sleeping bag" method you vets seem to have mastered.

I finished transition training with Tom Berge last night for a total of about 9 hours. I can't say enough about how valuable it was. I feel more confident as a pilot (not overconfident) than I ever have.

Last night we went around and ran the circuit around MSP, two landings at Crystal, one landing and a last-minute go-around at Lake Elmo, over to my home field of Fleming in South Saint Paul (dropped 300' on downwind so figured, "heck with it; I'll just keep it tight," ended up very high on base and greased it, and two landings at Airlake, where the plane now is, and finally a no-flaps landing back at Crystal. All were fine landings.

Tom had me flying with a "heavy wing" for a few of the landings to simulate what he encountered on the flight the other day. That was a pain in the neck but certainly doable, but it sure makes me want to get the first flight out of the way so I can get a benchmark and start fixing that thing. You know what's REALLY a pain in the neck? Having my plane at one airport, and having all of my tools at another.

I have to pull the brake calipers off and find out what the deal is with that left brake. There's a chance there's a kink in the line, too, so if the caliper doesn't reveal a problem I'll have to pull the false floors out and either remake the line or just "splice" in a section of it for testing.

I've kind of decided, with Tom's counsel, to do a "private" first flight. By myself, nobody around, early on a morning, but it may not be this week. There's an airshow in Mankato and the airspace is closed and that's in my "box," and the last thing I want to worry about is running into Sean D. Tucker. :D

Anyway, we'll see, but I'm not going to rush anything. It's a nice drive over to Oshkosh, too.
 
LettersFromFlyoverCountry said:
snip

I've kind of decided, with Tom's counsel, to do a "private" first flight. By myself, nobody around, early on a morning, but it may not be this week. There's an airshow in Mankato and the airspace is closed and that's in my "box," and the last thing I want to worry about is running into Sean D. Tucker. :D

Anyway, we'll see, but I'm not going to rush anything. It's a nice drive over to Oshkosh, too.
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Wise plan. Do consider it sooner rather than later, while transition training is still "fresh". You will be impressed with the performance improvement without the extra weight (sorry Tom).
 
Congratulations Bob, it is an excellent effort to get that aircraft into the air. I'm looking forward to the big retrospective article on your roller coaster ride to success. :)
 
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Wise path

Bob,

You have chosen a very wise path. I completely concur with the "private flight." No pressure that way. An excellent opportunity to learn your plane.

Certainly Oshkosh is doable if you fly soon, but again, your decision not to rush is commendable. On a side note, it is amazing how much gear you can get in an RV!!! But drive, we need the car!!!

The plane is going to feel very alive and left side heavy when you solo it. It's a great feeling. Each flight will have more meaning in both skill and knowledge.

Again, congrats. We are all very excited for you!!!
 
RV7Guy said:
The plane is going to feel very alive and left side heavy when you solo it.
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Part of the reason I figure it's going to take me awhile is that heavy wing. I'm going to go with the approach of enlarging the bolt holes on the outside aileron bracket and dropping the aileron slightly. But that has to be done in very small increments before adding the third bolt to lock it in.

Of course, there's also the very real issue of fuel. As you pointed out, it's a pricey time.

In fact, one of the eye-opening aspects of this is how much it cost to get through the process here at the end.

Here's an example:

Sales tax on 11 year's of online purchases: $3,700
Insurance (valued only at 50l) : $1,900
Minnesota use tax $ 550
Transition training (est.) $1,485
Airworthiness inspection $ 525
__________________
$8160

That's a LOT of money spent in the last month.

Now add 40 hours of fuel to that and we're over $10,000.

I don't have $10,000. :(
 
LettersFromFlyoverCountry said:
Now add 40 hours of fuel to that and we're over $10,000.

I don't have $10,000. :(
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I think I'd look at it differently. You're DONE. You get to fly. Sure, you have to pay for fuel etc. but the large ticket items are behind you. Even if you only flew it 25 hours per year, you'd be paying far less than you'd be if you flew even fewer hours in the FBO's Warrior.
 
ChiefPilot said:
I think I'd look at it differently. You're DONE. You get to fly. Sure, you have to pay for fuel etc. but the large ticket items are behind you. Even if you only flew it 25 hours per year, you'd be paying far less than you'd be if you flew even fewer hours in the FBO's Warrior.
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I'm not so sure of that. When comparing fuel cost for the RV against rental of the Warrior....yes. But fuel is only one component of total operating cost.

Renting probably costs less (definitely the case when you include the cost of the RV!). But many of us continue to fly our RVs in spite of not being able to justify them fiscally because the plane is an extension of our identity as builders. We look at the aircraft we built and see a part of ourselves and a few years of our life expressed in aluminum and steel.

Congrats, Bob, on reaching this milestone. I share your concern about being able to afford flying your plane. You won't have to put many hours on it each year in order to enjoy the benefit of being a part of the RV community. And that will enrich your life beyond the $$$$$'s spent.....as you have already found. :)
 
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LettersFromFlyoverCountry said:
Part of the reason I figure it's going to take me awhile is that heavy wing. I'm going to go with the approach of enlarging the bolt holes on the outside aileron bracket and dropping the aileron slightly. But that has to be done in very small increments before adding the third bolt to lock it in.
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That is typically the last thing you need to do in order correct a heavy wing (unless it's just horribly heavy to the point of almost being unflyable). There are some other time tested/trusted methods to correct some pretty stubborn issues with rigging/wing weights, yaw, etc.. Lets put some time on the bird first to find out how bad it is before moving aileron brackets.

You can plan for surgery, but lets try some basic massage first! :)

Cheers,
Stein
 
Brad made a good point at the hangar the other day. I can plan on pretty much fully funding operation of the RV with the money I won't be giving to UPS anymore. :D
 
LettersFromFlyoverCountry said:
The squeezing of the trailing edge?
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I was wondering the same thing.

Before any hole enlargement -
- How "heavy" is it?
- What happens if you make a profile cutout in cardboard of one aileron - how close is the other?
- Is the alignment of the ailerons to the spar, indeed, out of whack or are they close to the same?
- Angle of incidence & wing twist the same?

Dan
 
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LettersFromFlyoverCountry said:
I'm going to go with the approach of enlarging the bolt holes on the outside aileron bracket and dropping the aileron slightly. But that has to be done in very small increments before adding the third bolt to lock it in.
Click to expand...
Here's Van's very explicit (and presumably useful) instructions on what to do with a heavy wing. Might be worth exploring before going to such an extreme. Good luck, though, and congratulations on your first flight!

http://www.vansaircraft.com/pdf/Wing_Heavy.pdf
 
LettersFromFlyoverCountry said:
The squeezing of the trailing edge? Hold on. I'm going to go make some popcorn while you and Berge have a debate. Don't start without me. :p
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That's just one of several...none of which require relocation of the aileron hinges to adjust a typical RV heavy wing (which is VERY common) on new RV's to some extent. Your plane may indeed need that - but it's not common to do that on the first try of fixing it.

We'll start by looking at the flaps, then the wingtips, then the vertical stab and it's fairing, then we'll put the gear leg fairings on it and see what that does. ALL of that gets done before you start drilling on aileron brackets. Sometimes a few thousands on one flap (or opposite on each) will fix everything without much effort at all. Same with the gear leg fairings. I'd like to see what the rigging looks like first, and also fly it a bit before I did anything at all. Certainly long before I made ANY plans to drill on or move brackets and flight control mounts. You might get everything set, only to find out the gear leg fairings and wheelpants mess it up again!

I'll chat with you offline, but certainly it's dubious to already create a rather involved solution when you don't know what (and if) the details of the problem are.

Cheers,
Stein
 
Squeeze it!!!

I left Bob a phone message advising him to simply squeeze the light wing aileron. I can talk him through it. I don't know how or why it works but I had a heavy left wing. Pretty significant stick forces.

I spent lots of time checking the rigging of the flaps and ailerons although I knew they were very close. Van's recommended the squeezing procedure.

Did a minor squeeze on the TE of the light aileron and flew. Some improvement. Did another squeeze and flew. Dead nuts, straight and true. Should have done that first and not wasted the time.

I should note that even though you are squeezing the metal, there is no visual sign that you did anything!!!

Black Magic, I tell you!!!!
 
I, on the other hand, dropped the outboard aileron hinge ~1/16" and fixed everything.

My symptoms were heavy left wing, which I flew with for several hours to be certain what the problem was. during this initial testing I found not only the heavy wing, but an unstable condition in roll above 200mph. If I held the stick in a relaxed mode(didn't dare let go) and moved it either direction it would oscillate and get worse each cycle. After 4-5cycles it got scary. In level flight, if I looked at the ailerons, one side was up ~1" and the other side was down.

After some phone calls and research, I was told to check wing skin to aileron top alignment. Turns out the left side aileron was sitting proud of the wing surface about 1/8". The thought was the wind coming over the wing would hit the leading edge of the aileron causing a burble and would suck the aileron up. At high speed, the ailerons would fight each other. Dropping my outboard hinge to align the top surfaces improved things 98%. about 10hrs later I still had a very minor heavy condition, squeezed the opposite wing per Vans and "TaDa" all is well.

YMMV, but this worked for my situation
 
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Just to clarify. I'm not doing ANYTHING yet. I'm aware of the Van's instructions (the lowering of the aileron hinge is in there, by the way), and specifically the admonishment to do nothing until it's flown and it's determined HOW heavy is heavy. First things first.

I did notice a slight misrigging of the aileron tonight and corrected that and we'll take it up and see what we've got.

Don't panic, people. :p

But what I'm saying is, I'm going to patiently work through the process and it's going to take time (and money, of course) so I don't think Oshkosh is a reasonable expectation for the plane. Just as I didn't chase an end day for completion, I'm not chasing one for the end of flight testing, either.

that's all i'm saying.

Oh, and I'm also saying that "dead nuts" is the best aviation expression I've ever heard and I may start a new blog with that name.
 
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