After 4.5 years and 3200 hr of buliding, N284MA had it's first flight yesterday! Other than the oil door popping open on takeoff and high CHT on Cylinder 1, it was a good flight. Flew for 30 min at 4500 ft to assist with break in, did some slow flight to check handling, then came back to land. I did my transition training last year with Alex De Dominicis and the last bit of landing practice last Friday really helped. First I want to thank my wife Melissa who believed in me, helped me with hundreds of hours of riveting, and encouraged me to keep going when I got frustrated. I also want to thank my friend Kurt Rutkowski who was at the hangar almost every day the past few months as I finished up the build and prepped for flight. His experience was invaluable.
The airplane flew great, no trim or rigging issues that I can tell so far. There are a few squawks I need to address before the next flight: 1) Stiffen up the oil door (I used 2 of the Cessna style latches), 2) re-check the nose breakout torque as there was a bit of shimmy at high speeds, and 3) consider cutting down the dam in front of Cyl 1 to see if I can improve the temperatures.
Although I haven't posted much, I've read thousands of posts on VAF and pretty much every question I had during the build was already answered here. Thanks Doug for hosting such a great forum and everyone else for particpating!
-Bob
The airplane flew great, no trim or rigging issues that I can tell so far. There are a few squawks I need to address before the next flight: 1) Stiffen up the oil door (I used 2 of the Cessna style latches), 2) re-check the nose breakout torque as there was a bit of shimmy at high speeds, and 3) consider cutting down the dam in front of Cyl 1 to see if I can improve the temperatures.
Although I haven't posted much, I've read thousands of posts on VAF and pretty much every question I had during the build was already answered here. Thanks Doug for hosting such a great forum and everyone else for particpating!
-Bob
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