This was always on my bucket list, but the hassle of getting an ATC clearance plus changing my canula out for a mask seemed to be too much trouble. Now, I’ve gone to Basic Med, so, I guess I’ll never know.
what i forgot in my previous post...
don't be afraid of the coffin corner. an normally aspirated RV will not make it that high. the airplane felt kinda spongy but at no point uncontrollable. controls were still straight and true above FL200. these RV`s are amazingly well thought out! but if you want to feel more comfortable it would be a good idea to train some stalls before.
and check your engine parameters. i usually have a cool running engine and was fighting with very low oil temps. the engine still made around 40% power at that altitude with 17F OAT. down low with same power and OAT my CHT'S would be well below 300 F. this flight they were much higher. especially the oil temps... at that flight oil temps got surprisingly very high. i didn't expect that. basically altitude in ft / 100 + 10 = oil temp in F.
maybe somebody here can explain that phenomena.
we did that flight in germany. governmental authorities here seem to be at least equally bureaucratic as the ones in north america. but in the end getting ATC clearance was just to emails and a phone call. no deal. maybe think again.
pointing to oxygen is very important. i had a mask and problems with oxygen and oximeter showed around 80% in my blood. this was critical and was dazed accordingly and not fit enough to finish the flight. my buddy had a completely independent system with canula and had no problems. he was riding us home.
strange thing was that, even i wasn't able to perform basic tasks anymore (like steering the aircraft in the correct direction), i thought everything is ok with me. back on the ground i realized that something was very wrong with me up high.
after that experience i do strongly recommend to anybody to consider performing that kind of "record flight". it's just so cool!
but if you do so please please please take somebody with you who is able to continue the flight and with completely seperate oxygen systems. if you wanna do it alone, then use one of these small oximeters that are very helpful here and test them on the ground. then check your blood frequently and abort as soon it gets lower that 95% or so.
SNIP
Realistically, above about 14K, performance is dropping off in the short wing RV’s, so unless you are doing it to pick up a tailwind or clear some weather (or terrain), anything higher doesn’t make much sense. SNIP
Paul
And if not already done, set-up the Dynon to show your Vne in TAS also.
Very easy during descent to exceed 200 KTAS.