100 Hours!
Well it's been a long, long time, so I figured this would be a good update point. It's actually been 130 hours but either way we're at a milestone. I flew the plane down to Georgia for paint.
Since the 40 hour phase 1, we've been to Chicago numerous times, Sun N Fun, Oshkosh around Michigan some and of course Mike's place many, many times. I've flown friends, relatives, colleagues, potential builders and EAA Young Eagles.
This was on the way to Sun N Fun. I flew in very loose formation with Mike in his RV-4. Morristown was one of our waypoints. It was on this trip that I discovered how inconvenient the EFIS 1 is when it doesn't store your flight plan. Not very clever. Not sure it'll ever be available for my hardware version either. We had to go this high because...
... of these forest fires in Georgia. Nasty stuff.
Here we are parked together in the RV section.
On the way back, I found it really hard to land at our refuelling stop. It felt like the elevator wasn't pulling back enough. Once we had landed, I tried to move it, but it was fine. Strange. Once I got back to YIP it was a different story. I had the same issue, but a lot worse. This was the maximum elevator travel I had to land with. See further down for what went wrong, in the "What went wrong" section.
Here's a shot of my plane at Mike's. My plane practically flies itself there now it's been there so many times! Sometimes to visit, sometimes to help out on other planes, sometimes just to make a low pass. Either way, it's a fun strip! Check it out at www.wolflakeairport.com, and drop in and say hello some time!
Here we are at Oshkosh. We had to make this a daytrip in the interest of time. We had none! We got up early, got here, looked around and left. Both Mike and I flew in my plane too.
What Went Wrong?!
Not too much really. It's been pretty reliable, and I haven't been stranded anywhere other than home. Here's my quick list...
1. EFIS Autopilot Servo set screw backed out and jammed elevator controls. (Could've been real bad.)
2. Front baffle cracking at mounting behind prop spinner.
3. Air intake snorkel rubbing on cowling during higher G loads.
4. Rear strobe tube blew.
5. Loss of screws from rocker covers and baffles! Lord knows who's house these crashed through.
6. Cowling bulging between the camlock fasteners.
7. Bit of a draught coming through doghouse area. (My fault, as I cannot find the seal that Van's supplied.)
8. Dragging brakes.
9. O ring failure on RH brake caliper.
10. Lock screws coming loose on two switches on the panel.
11. Bent the tailwheel control rod bumping up from grass on to a taxiway.
12. Tank bleed valves full of debris. Yum.
So the details of what went wrong...
1. Set screw backed out of the EFIS 1 autopilot control horn on the servo and jammed my elevator controls. Yes this made for quite an entertaining landing on the way back from Sun N Fun. Luckily nothing got damaged and all was fine. In the image below you can see the set screw. This prompted me to post on the BMA discussion board and also to check my servos regurlarly. I used high strength Loctite on the threads one both my servos so hopefully this won't happen to me again!
2. Front baffle cracking. No picture of this, but for some unknown reason I either forgot or just didn't realise I should put a doubler here. My mistake. Something which will be rectified shortly.
3. Need picture, but the snorkel rubs against the inside of the cowling under high G loads. Eventually it'll break through, so pretty soon I'll be doing lay ups inside the snorkel.
4. My rear strobe blew within about 10 hours of operation. Not too clever. The units ain't that cheap either. Easy replacement though. Got it taken care of pretty quickly thanks to the super fast shipping from Aircraft Spruce.
5. Seems that the star type lockwashers aren't enough to keep these buggers in place! I've lost some screws from baffle mountings and my rocker covers. I've probably replaced about 5 now. I've since been and Loctited every last one of them. Haven't lost any since.
6. Just before the plane went off to the painters, I laid up some carbon fibre around the rear part of the cowling and that really helped stiffen it up some. I also extended the cowling a little ways overlapping the fuselage to give a nice joint. It turned out pretty nice. Just before the plane went in to the paint shop, Keith helped me out big time prepping the fibreglass and getting the wheel pants and intersection fairings finished up. He did a great job too. Here is a picture of the front showing all the hard work. Pinholes filled and everything. Keith squeegeed on a high build sandable primer to fill the holes. It worked really well, and was super fast. Keith has done a Bronze Lindy Lancair, so he knows his fibreglass! We also wrapped up the fibreglass for the tail feathers. Ready for paint!
7. I haven't really got a fix for this yet. I should probably order a new seal from Vans and put it on. It's not really an issue until the weather is cold. Like it is here inthe winter time.
8. I fixed this issue by fitting springs on the master cylinders. It was pretty easy really. I'll take a picture next time and post it here. Made a big difference. I think the brake dragging contributed to the O Ring failure I had on the same brake caliper.
9. See 8 above...
10. Now I have the plane back, as soon as the temps outside become bearable again, I can get under the panel and tighten these up. It's only two switches. I'll probably add a dab of Loctite when I do it too.
11. While doing some Young Eangle flights, we had to park on the grass by a taxiway. There was a pretty big step up, and when I was turning the tailwheel caught and bent the tailwheel link I have. At the time, I bent it back straight, but I ordered a replacement as you can never be sure what damage you've really done. I'm thinking about upgrading the tailwheel too to give more ground clearance to the castering arm. There are a few options out there, so I need to weigh them up before doing it.
12. Seems no matter how hard you try you can't keep the inside of the tanks clean during build. Mine were quickbuilds, and I never opened them up until I put fuel in. Nonetheless, the bleed valves eventually started dripping due to the debris in there. I replaced them and haven't had an issue since. See the phase one page for pics.