JamesClarkIV
Active Member
I thought you all might like to see some pictures from my airworthiness inspection and first flight:
Three things I'm very thankful for this year: My wife, my 8 month old son, and my fresh airworthiness inspection (10/16/15) on N997RV:
Black friday before the big liftoff (fire suit on):
Airborne!:
After Landing:
Brief first flight narrative:
N997RV flew for the first time today from Manassas Regional airport in VA. The departure was from a class D inside the Washington DC SFRA. Pattern altitude was 1200 and I requested 1800 just under the class D ceiling. I flew for 28 minutes and 5 long pattern laps above the airport before descending into the pattern and landing on 34R. I remained within 2 miles of the runway at all times.
N997RV is an RV7A with Lycoming IO-360-M1B and constant speed prop. I orbited the field with shallow bank angles and tested for stability. Airspeed was kept to a sedate 115 KIAS peak. At these slower speeds the aircraft required 40% of my available "up" electric elevator trim to fly level and prevent a descent. Right electric aileron trim was also required to level a very slightly heavy left wing. Since I had a 2000 MSL ceiling, I only tested flaps to first of 3 notches (15 deg), and only performed a slowdown to 80 knots (nowhere near stall) to confirm airspeed indications were reasonable. After 5 laps and 25 minutes, I powered back to 95 knots, deployed 15 degrees of flaps, and performed a gradual descending base/final to 34R. Landing was a greaser by blind luck, or maybe thanks to 5.1 hours transition training with Jan in Florida.
Post flight data analysis indicates I touched down on the runway at about 61 KIAS. The brand new engine saw CHTs starting during the takeoff roll around 350 and climbing briefly over 400 to 425 during the first climbout. After level off the CHTs were back well under 400. This first flight was biased towards risk reduction/safety (at the expense of engine breakin) and the next flight is planned for 1:20 minutes at 75% power to try to seat the rings. No major squawks.
More to come...along with some questions for the community....in the meantime...Happy Thanksgiving...It sure is for me.
Jim Clark
Three things I'm very thankful for this year: My wife, my 8 month old son, and my fresh airworthiness inspection (10/16/15) on N997RV:
![1.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fjamessclarkiv.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fimages%2F1.jpg&hash=e9495b4564985493ddef5891f8d1e289)
Black friday before the big liftoff (fire suit on):
![2.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fjamessclarkiv.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fimages%2F2.jpg&hash=6ffe537d474a2d8da293e9b869266c7b)
Airborne!:
![7.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fjamessclarkiv.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fimages%2F7.jpg&hash=f387e26b3d291c1fc3eada1ccc3cbcc9)
After Landing:
![3.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fjamessclarkiv.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fimages%2F3.jpg&hash=b499d8bf6db1d6067fe15aea73050402)
Brief first flight narrative:
N997RV flew for the first time today from Manassas Regional airport in VA. The departure was from a class D inside the Washington DC SFRA. Pattern altitude was 1200 and I requested 1800 just under the class D ceiling. I flew for 28 minutes and 5 long pattern laps above the airport before descending into the pattern and landing on 34R. I remained within 2 miles of the runway at all times.
N997RV is an RV7A with Lycoming IO-360-M1B and constant speed prop. I orbited the field with shallow bank angles and tested for stability. Airspeed was kept to a sedate 115 KIAS peak. At these slower speeds the aircraft required 40% of my available "up" electric elevator trim to fly level and prevent a descent. Right electric aileron trim was also required to level a very slightly heavy left wing. Since I had a 2000 MSL ceiling, I only tested flaps to first of 3 notches (15 deg), and only performed a slowdown to 80 knots (nowhere near stall) to confirm airspeed indications were reasonable. After 5 laps and 25 minutes, I powered back to 95 knots, deployed 15 degrees of flaps, and performed a gradual descending base/final to 34R. Landing was a greaser by blind luck, or maybe thanks to 5.1 hours transition training with Jan in Florida.
Post flight data analysis indicates I touched down on the runway at about 61 KIAS. The brand new engine saw CHTs starting during the takeoff roll around 350 and climbing briefly over 400 to 425 during the first climbout. After level off the CHTs were back well under 400. This first flight was biased towards risk reduction/safety (at the expense of engine breakin) and the next flight is planned for 1:20 minutes at 75% power to try to seat the rings. No major squawks.
More to come...along with some questions for the community....in the meantime...Happy Thanksgiving...It sure is for me.
Jim Clark