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First Flight - N957RV - Scott Stewart

DakotaHawk

DakotaHawk

Well Known Member
Kit number 72608 became N957RV on Dec 18, 2009. After finishing up a few items on the "to do" list, I couldn't find any more excuses, so I had to fly! My RV-7 has a rebuilt IO-360 and a constant speed Hartzell prop. I painted it with Stewart Systems waterborne paint. First flight took place at the Arlington airport (KAWO) under 5000 ft ceilings, light mist, no wind, and cool temps.

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After dialing in the trim, she flew extremely sweet! I couldn't detect any bad habits during the short flight. Being the first flight, I flew 7RV in a NASCAR oval at 4000 ft above the airport. She turns left just fine! Haven't tried to turn right yet! ;) We only got in a couple of laps around the airport before the weather started to become a factor.

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Landing was a non-event. Final approach at 85mph with flaps down, flare, and "chirp" - I had arrived back at home base! Total flight time - 29 minutes. RV Grin? Yep!:D

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Special thanks to Brian Costello, who walked me through an engine overhaul, and to Frank Melder who bucked rivets, spouted wisdom, hatched some crazy opinions, and flew chase plane, and to Mike Seager who provided 2.7 hrs of transition training in the RV-6 in some of the crappiest weather I ever want to fly in.

Thanks also to those who provided encouragement during the process - My wife Kimala, my son Casey, my Dad Norm, Doug Medina, Ken Westlund, Steve, Bob Savage, David Mischke, George Dube and all of the great people in EAA Chap 818, Aircraft Spruce, Avery Tools, and Cleveland Tools.
 
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Looks good,, flys great,... sounds like you had an early Christmas

congrats,... just remember a few things

- to visit with folks just a bit around the holidays,...

- you can't fly all the 40 hrs off between now and 4 jan,.... and you should slow down and take a few looks along the way to make sure it is all where it is supposed to be..

- to stop replaying it in your mind and wipe the RV grin off long enough so you can get some sleep and be safe for the next flight

Merry Christmas
 
Fantastic..

I like the paint scheme and that center island inside. Very nice. Fly safe and have fun waiting for those weather windows...;)
 
Congrats on the first flight! I'll have to look for the airplane around the pattern there at AWO.
 
Beautiful job!

You're gonna love it, but you already knew that. Have fun and keep the Big Cut up at least for the first 30 hours or so :D. Vne first.
 
Looks great!

Congratulations Scott! Beautiful airplane. I'm sure a lot of us would love to see a post about your experience with the Stewart paints, when you have a minute. :D Enjoy it!
 
Scott,
What a beautiful airplane! Congrats! Is your center console built from scratch or did you buy it.
Fox Smith
Brownsville, TN
RV7 - EM
 
Fox, the center console is a kit from Aircraft Extras. It included the throttle quadrant. After I built the kit, I sent it off to a shop to be upholstered. The kit is a direct screw-in attachment to the existing nut-plates in the seat pans.
 
Second Flight today

After a brief hiatus to visit family in Oregon, I was able to get my second flight in my newly minted -7 this afternoon. Once again, temps were clear and cold at Arlington airport, with high clouds.

Let me give a little background about my first flight experience in my RV-7.

I own a Fisher Flying Products Dakota Hawk (a Taylorcraft type airplane), which I completed back in 2002. It has a Continental C-85 engine with a turtle fast 85 horsepower! It cruises at about 85mph, with a top speed of 110mph. My Dakota Hawk has great short field performance and flies into just about every grass strip I could find here in Washington. When I was within a few months of completing that airplane, I realized that I really needed to finish off my pilot's license so I could fly the Dakota Hawk when it was done.

So I dutifully began taking lessons again, and completed my PPL in Cessna 152's, 172's, and a Piper Warrior. The week after I got my PPL, I jumped to another instructor with a Texas Taildragger (tailwheel Cessna 150) to get my tailwheel endorsement. Three days later I had my endorsement in hand, my Dakota Hawk was inspected, and so I went flying. For the next seven years, my logbook is page after page of "Dakota Hawk" flights. In all that time, I was only unfaithful to my Dakota Hawk twice - once in a C-172, and once in a Champ.

Fast forward to 2009. I've been flying at 85 mph for seven years! Now it's time to break in a new RV-7 that kicks along (without the fairings) at about 165 mph. I flew for a couple of hours with Mike Seager in Scappoose Oregon (highly recommended), but he's flying an RV-6 with a Fixed Pitch prop and 160hp. My new steed has a fresh IO-360 and a Constant Speed prop! I've got some extra ponies to tame.

So on my first flight of my RV-7, I was very concerned about all that power and speed. In fact, on take-off, I didn't even get more than about 50% power in before I was flying, and I climbed out at that power setting. I thought that I was taking off like a rocket - my chase plane was concerned that there was something wrong with my engine!

Now for today's flight. It's the second flight and I have three goals for this flight.
  1. Take off with full throttle.
  2. Perform a few stalls to determine stall characteristics
  3. Fly for about an hour at 75% or more power to begin engine break-in

Well, I was able to climb out at full throttle, but the RV-7 was already airborne before I could feed all of the power in. At full throttle, I was getting greater than 2000 fpm climb while still accelerating! What a rush!

I live about five miles north of the airport, so, prior to takeoff, I wrote a text to my son "come outside and look up". As soon as I was in the air, I pressed "send". I was over the house before I knew it, and put the RV into a tight circle while my wife and son came out to admire the work of the past three years and ten months. This was their first time to see it flying.

After a couple of turns about a point, I flew off to the west to do a couple of stalls. Slow to 75mph, pull back to bleed off speed, and break at about 65mph - clean, power off stall. Next I dropped all of the flaps and got the break at about 58 mph. Both stalls were straight with no tendency to drop a wing. The stalls were pronounced, with very little pre-stall buffet, but recovery consisted of a little forward stick and a tiny bit of power to achieve a positive rate-of-climb.

By this time, I was eight minutes into my flight, and it was time to get up to 75% power and get the rings seated in my engine. I was getting close to Whidbey airspace, so I turned back toward Arlington. Within three minutes, I was getting too close to Arlington, so I turned back toward Whidbey. Well, you can see where this is going... I wanted to stay close to a familiar airport, but I also wanted to fly at high power. I was turning circles too often!

So I turned north to head up toward Skagit airport. In my Dakota Hawk, it takes me about 15 to 20 minutes to get there. Not so in the RV-7. Six minutes later, I was past the Skagit airport and starting to worry about Bellingham airspace! Well, I ended up flying between Arlington and Skagit for the next 45 minutes while I let the engine break in. I spent the time paying attention to the Dynon EMS and EFIS. I played around with some of the various "tools" provided on the EMS, such as the LEAN mode, flight computers, fuel management, etc. I also did some minor maneuvering, pulling a whopping 1.6 g's in a turn!;)

As the flight timer on the EMS ticked up toward 60 minutes, I headed back to Arlington for my second landing in my newly minted RV-7. I was pretty cocky after greasing my first landing and making the first taxi-way. Not so on the second landing. I landed long, with less airspeed control than I had on the first flight. After hopping down the runway, I finally planted all three, and then had to settle for the second taxi-way.:(

So now I have an enforced four day hiatus while I go pay some bills, then I can fly some more next week!:D
 
I'll bet your having a blast! I still day dream about my first few flights. Heck I day dream about my last and next flight come to think about it.:D
 
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