Phase 1 Flight Testing
11/25/2006 2 hours (0.3 flying)
More flying today! Now that the first one is over with, I can concentrate on getting the serious work done. My test flight regime includes three laps of the pattern before going off to the test area to make sure everything is still working as it should. Eventually I'll build up confidence in everything, then I'll reduce the pattern laps.
Here is the plane while I'm pre-flighting it. I always preflight without the cowling on for now, as I want to keep an eye on everything under there. That, and I haven't done the oil door yet!
With that in mind, I started the three laps. Took off on the first one, and I noticed that the altitude read out on the transponder was going DOWN when I went UP! Oh dear. What the heck is that all about? Tower confirmed negative Mode C. Well, it was definitely working yesterday, as the tower is quick to point out no Mode C around here as we're within the 30nm DTW class B Mode C veil.
I landed and noticed that on the ground the altitude readout looked normal. Hmmm. We set up to test the encoder by applying slight suction on the static port. Yep, transponder still not right. I phoned Mike who offered to fly out to YIP with another transponder to try, so I took him up on it. He was here in no time, we pulled ours out, switched it, fine, switch back to ours and fine again. I guess reseating it in the tray worked out, because I took it up for a flight with Mike as a flight of two, and it worked the whole time and has never let me down since.
I guess I should consider myself lucky that Mike is an avionics addict and I can call him for practically anything!
The fuse for the nav lights blew too. Hmmm. After speaking with Mike, a 5 amp fuse is not enough. I replaced it with a 7.5 and they seem OK now.
The CHT is a lot lower on cylinder #1 than all the others, probably by about 100 degrees. That's too much. Mike said I should make a little shield to go in front of that cylinder to deflect the air some.
After all that, I only managed to get 0.3 flying hours in.
1/26/2006 1.3 flying
Today, I did three pattern laps and then flew out and met Mike and Jim King for lunch at Napoleon 3NP, then we went over to Mike's (26W) to chat some. On the way, I did some power off stalls. The AOA pro seems pretty close out of the box, which is pretty cool. It still needs to be calibrated though. A nice buffet came at about 49kts with no flaps. I tried full flaps, and it was about 45kts. Not much difference there is there. I'll do some more next time out to see what the deal is there. I did some slow flight, and some turns too. Seems to fly just like the plane I flew with Mike Seager. No surprises at all.
I lost GPS signal to the EFIS 1 on the way there too, so now seemed like a good time to try the nav radio and VOR navigation. I knew where Mike's was visually, which is good, otherwise I'd've been lost! Break out the map, tune the radial and away we went. The VOR nav worked sweet, and the info fed right into the EFIS and worked correctly. Some satisfaction there.
Here's our plane at Mike's!
At Mike's, we removed the cowl and wiggled the antenna connector around. The GPS came back. Hmmm. We put the cowl back on and then I headed back to YIP. About two minutes into the flight, and the GPS went out again. Crap. Something needs some attention somewhere. I noticed too that the OAT seems to be reading a little on the high side. Maybe I need to relocate the sensor as it might be getting some warmth from the inside of the cabin. I'll check with Blue Mountain to see if they have any better temperature probes. The one they sent with the E1 sucks. It's just a thermistor with some heatshrink on it.
12/2/2006 1 hour (2 flying)
Today I got to the hangar and made a shield for the cylinder #1. I cleco'd it on for now with three clecoes. I also taped the wire coming out of the GPS antenna to stop it wiggling around. Maybe that will help isolate the problem to firewall forward.
I pre-flighted the plane, put the cowling back on and then went to fire it up. It was pretty could today (0 degrees C) and it wouldn't start. Bugger. Now the battery hasn't enough juice. The plane had been plugged in too for the last few days to keep it warm. I guess with the cowling off, the heat just dissipates too easily from the cylinders. I should probably get on with that oil door.
I recharged the battery and got the plane started. Tally Ho!
Two laps of the pattern today, and then out towards 3NP for some more flying. It was nice and sunny today. I was expecting crap weather for the weekend after yesterdays storm passed through with all the rain and potential snow, but it missed us and it's beautiful flying weather. The wind was 230 at 13, right down the runway.
I put in a GPS flight plan into the EFIS1, and flew out to Mike's to meet John Hill. They're building two RV-10's out there, one each. Must be nice! It's nice having all the info for the airports available in the EFIS1, and being able to access the radio frequencies and send them to the radio as you need them. Fantastic stuff.
After talking with people on the Blue Mountain message board, I managed to get the power reading up in our engine instrumentation on the EFIS1 too. That really was nice to have, as you can pull the throttle back to 75%, set your RPM and you're good. If you pull back to 70%, the engine goes into economy cruise mode and uses even less fuel. For some reason, the fuel flow reading isn't working from the FADEC. I wonder if it's actually part of the stream or not. I need to find that out. We do have a Floscan fuel flow meter, but that's not working either. It was, but since the EFIS came back from it's preflight check over it hasn't worked. I should borrow one from Mike, then I can isolate the sensor as the problem, then if necessary track it through the wiring. It seems to be set up OK in the EFIS.
On the way, I did some turns and some more stalls. 46kts today with flaps. It's a bit lower than Van's numbers, but it's not too far off. One of the checks I need to make is the airspeed.
I got to Mike's and met John. I didn't stay for long, as flying hours need to be accumulated! I took off, and wouldn't you know it, the GPS went again. I went and landed at Mike's and borrowed a spare antenna. Another check to do. I wonder if the bulkhead connectors that go through the firewall should have isolated grounds. Maybe I should check with Blue Mountain on that too. This is what testing is all about I guess. Find it and fix it. When Mike came out, he brought out a sectional and said, "Here's your GPS!". Cheeky bugger. I took it from him and hit him over the head with it!
I tried the autopilot while out flying today too. At first I couldn't get it to engage. Hmmm. Why not? It was fine on the ground. Then I discovered this thing on the panel called an autopilot power switch. Amazing technology! Duh! The autopilot worked, but it did hunt a lot. It s-turned it's way along a heading to the point I thought I might need a sick bag! I let it go as long as I could to see it it would stabilise, but it never did. It seemed to hold altitude a lot better, although it did breeze through a hundred feet when trying to descend and capture another altitude. In general it's working correctly though, it just needs tuning. Maybe the GPS being inop makes the EFIS 1 AHRS not function, which may affect it's sensibility some. More reading!
The autopilot followed a VOR radial from the SL-30, although it did it with a long series of S-Turns. Some tuning.
Back to YIP, top off the tanks and put the plane away. It's all moving along, and nothing dangerous has reared it's head so far. Seems to be just tuning stuff. Not really too bad at all.
12/09/2006 3 hours
I went to the hangar today to finish up the second heat muff installation, and have the plane ready to fly for tomorrow. I wanted to fly today, but it was way to windy. The wind was a slight crosswind at 16 knots, but gusting to 27! I think that will keep me grounded!
I replaced the GPS antenna firewall connectors with isolated ground types too. I wonder if it'll make any difference?
I started troubleshooting the fuel flow sensor. I didn't have to look very far. I had a dodgy connection for the power lead for it at one of the connectors. I put a new terminal on it, and it was fine then. I'm glad that was so easy, as now I can get some fuel flow data.
12/10/2006 2.8 hours flying
Today was a great flying day apart from the 16 knot winds again. No gusts though today, and the winds were right down the runway practically.
I did two laps of the pattern and then flew out to the test area.
Transitioned KARB airspace on the way to Mike's. Flew around for a little while doing
turns. The GPS went out again, so I guess it wasn't the bulkhead connectors 
.
The autopilot wouldn't engage for some reason, even though I was above 1200 AGL. I headed towards Mike's, did some turns and stalls again then landed and connected his antenna directly to the EFIS CPU and put it up on glareshield. We tested the autopilot on the ground and found it to be working for some reason. I don't get that.
I took off from Mike's and had him video tape me flying down the runway. Sweet. GPS worked fine the rest of the flight, so I guess I have some connections to troubleshoot. I decided to do some climb testing. The EFIS 1 records all your flight data which makes this stuff really easy. Once you get down on the ground, push "Save Flight Log", take the data home and play with it in Excel.
I got the autopilot to engage for a while, but then for some reason it decided to quit. I never did get it working again until back on the ground at YIP. Hmmm. The next GPS test will be to connect Mike's antenna to the bulkhead connector on the firewall. Maybe I have a dodgy connection.
Then I flew up to the PSI VOR. Nav radio is working well and the EFIS is performing flawlessly in this department. Flew by Nigel's house and then headed back south. Did some speed runs at 75% power. Did some climb testing, but had to abandon as CHT's got too high. I managed to plot some climb data and came up with a best rate of climb around 90 knots. I will confirm this next time out.
I practiced some 0g manouevers too, as I have to do some to calibrate the AOA Pro. I've still got to get used to where the stick needs to be to generate a consistent 0g, but I'll get there. I have to make sure I don't have too much stuff in the plane when I do them, or it'll be flying everywhere!
I decided to fly back to Mike's to pick up his parachute and then I headed back to YIP.
At home, I worked through the data a bit to see what I had come up with. I got a nice Fuel Flow curve. At 70% power, it's burning 7.2GPH. At 110% power, it's sucking 16GPH! Don't ask me how it gets 110% power... The FADEC calculates everything, and when you go to take off, that's what the power meter says at full throttle. It drops off rapidly with altitude too I noticed.
12/11/2006 1.2 hours flying
I went out to Mike's again (popular place for me!), and as I entered the pattern he was ready to fly with me, so I did a fly by, and he took off behind me. We did a few speed, altitude and power comparisons while we flew. We did a giant rectangle flight in our test area, then went back to Mike's place. The autopilot has pretty much stopped working altogether now.
Here are some shots from the evening's flying. There wasn't much daylight left, so not really much time, but we made the most of it.
The EFIS1 in action. Sweet stuff indeedy.
The view out of the window.
Me, looking completely gormless.
Mike breaking right!
Back at Mike's.
I've been having discussions on the Blue Mountain message board to figure out my auto pilot woes. It was suggested by Bob Northrup that it may be the ethernet cable that runs between the E1 CPU and the A/P controller. Tonight (12/13/06) I replaced the cable and it looks like that was indeed the issue. I'll test fly it soon and see!
For those with some bandwidth, here's a 16MB low pass video download. Low Pass! You can also listen to the exhaust note of this puppy. Sounds really sweet!
12/14/2006 1 hour flying
Yesterday, I stopped by the hangar and swapped out the ethernet cable to the autopilot controller. Looks like that has fixed the issues of it not working - on the ground anyway. It was too dark to fly, so it had to wait until today.
I took the plane out and flew up to the Salem VOR SVM, and tried the autopilot on the way. It works! It actually works very, very well indeed. I have set the gains to 55 for both the aileron and elevator. I'm very impressed!
I turned around and headed back to YIP as the sun was about set. It was a bit windy today with winds 190/15 which was fine for runway 23L. When I got back, ATIS was calling 180/18 gusting to 26. I thought it was going to be somewhat entertaining this evening, but it was absolutely no problem carrying a little more speed, I still managed a full stall landing without any sweating. Nice.
12/16/2006 1.9 hours flying
I've not had much chance to do web page updates as I've been in England for a week. Now I'm back and caught up with everything else, I can make some headway into this. Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year, and got all the plane things they wanted for Christmas!
This flight I did some real climb & descent testing. Unfortunately, I couldn't do what I really wanted to do. I started at 2000' for each one, and had to stop at 6000' due to CHT's getting a bit high. Ordinarily this wouldn't be too much of an issue, but since I'm still breaking in the engine I don't want to get it too hot. Once up at 6000' I cruised uip there for a while to cool off the cylinders before doing a descent test back down to 2000'.
I examined the data and plotted some graphs of the climb and descent rates. It seems I need to do some climbs at lower airspeeds, as I only have the last downward part of the chart. Hmmm.
Here's the fuel flow curve I mentioned previously. I haven't seen enything out there for an RV with FADEC, so here it is. You'll be quite impressed! At about 65% power, we were burning 6.7 GPH! That's 6 hours endurance (more than my bladder most likely) with about a half hour reserve! I don't know what our cruise speed will be at this fuel burn, as we haven't put the gear leg farings and wheelpants on yet.
12/18/2006 1 hour (maintenance)
Time for the first oil change! I bought a filter cutter from Aircraft spruce, and set about changing the oil. I stopped at the hangar on my way to work, levelled the plane and set it draining. I also pierced the oil filter. The engine heater had been on, so the engine was quite warm. I left for work and came back at the end of the day and finished the change.
Here's the filter cutter. It can be held in a vise, you screw the oil filter to it, turn the handle and crank in the blade and presto, a nicely cut open filter.
Here is the paper element. I was a little dark in colour, but I couldn't find any specs of metal (which is always a positive sign). It's quite a messy job cutting one of these open.
1/14/2007 0.25 hour (maintenance)
The fuel drains on the fuel tank started leaking a while back, so I ordered some new ones so I could replace them/service them as necessary. They had arrived, so while Clayton was around I had him help me replace them. Since the fuel tanks were full, it meant quickly putting a finger over the hole when the drain was removed! Fun eh! (That 'eh' was for you Clayton!)
Well, once we removed them we found out why they leaked. No matter how clean you think your tanks are, there will be something in there. You can be sure of that. Check out the debris on the valves we removed! No wonder they leaked! Now that I've removed them, the only thing to do would be to replace the O-rings. I'm sure the O-rings on these are shot. They both had aluminium shavings on them, and one had a strand of red plastic from somewhere.
OK, I know it's been a really long time since I got to update the web site, but I've just been having way too much fun!
I've been flying practically any time I can, so I blew through my 40 hours and now have 53.5 hours in total. Incredible! My biggest problem now is where to start with catching up on all this stuff!
Well... Let's start with the gear leg fairings.. The installation of these is covered on Wrap Up 7. These seemed to be worth about 11 kts for my plane! That seems awful high to me, but in general cruising, I've been seeing around 8-11 kts higher speeds. Sweet! I have the upper intersection fairings on now too, so I should probably make a picture of that too. Pretty soon I can start on the wheel pants, as it's starting to warm up a little here in Michigan.
Other stuff... EFIS system.. I had a software update from 2.64 to 2.71, and it was less than ideal really. The way airspaces are depicted is much nicer, but the wind direction appears to have a bug in it now. I've also had an issue with the machine locking up with this software. I tried to revert back to 2.64, but then my machine was way less than happy, locking up after being on for only 10 secs or so after boot up. Not a good scenario. There was also a bunch of talk about 'Set Level' on the Blue Mountain board. It all seemed like it was making sense, and then Greg chimed in and now it all doesn't again! I accidentally hit set level in flight, and my E1 hasn't been the same since. I will be putting the plane into a level attitude on the ground and clearing my 'set level' array, then doing 'set level' again. Hopefully this will make a difference.
As far as flying is concerned, my first cross country was to Dayton, OH to take Dave who was over for a visit down to see Walt & Donna get married. Congrats Walt & Donna! The plane got a lot of praise from all the people hanging around at the airport!
I took Lucy (my patient wife) up for a little flight a while back too, and she seemed to be fairly happy with it. We did a low pass at Mike's house (couldn't land due to snow on the runway) and pulled up pretty hard at the end and I could hear her making funny noises (like a scream, but a happy kind of scream) due to the G's! We had a blast!
One time, me and Dave went out and passed by Mike's, and he came out and was doing snow angels on the runway! We have a lot of fun here!
We were scheduled ot go to Chicago in the plane, but weather put an end to it. Freezing rain is not something I ever plan on dealing with on a flight, anywhere anytime. Maybe one weekend we can buzz over there for some lunch or something.
The other day, I got a great deal on a GX-60 on E-Bay, so that hole in the panel can finally be filled! It took a long time I know, but these things don't seem to come up too often. I put it in the plane, and the comm side seems fine. This weekend I'll be installing the antenna so I can check out the GPS. Seems like it'll be fine though, the unit is pristine. Now I have to find somewhere else for my maps! Hmm... Try the glove box Marky!
A nice cover arrived to the other day from Bruce's Custom Covers. Fits like a charm it does. I'll snap some pics of it too.
I'm planning on flying the plane to Sun N Fun this year 'in the raw', hopefully Mike can go too. It'll be nice to have some company to fly down with. We're planning to arrive on Wednesday, and leave Saturday morning. I'm actually going to camp this year too, contrary to my usual 4 star hotel.
Well, I'll upload this update... If I think of anything else I'll put it in next time!