Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

(Pictures and flight stats to follow tonight.)

Got up this morning fully intending to go to work. Went for my usual morning work out. When I left the pool it was light enough to tell it was going to be a very clear day. Went back home to check on the weather. Confirmed. Light winds, high ceilings. I changed out of my work clothes and headed for the hangar with a short stop at the hardware store for a Dremel bit.

Down at the hangar I worked on the canopy latches. A word of advice: the latch should not take much force to open and close. I almost got myself stuck inside the plane by forcing it closed. I eventually got it open again and coaxed the latch fingers down a tiny bit more and sanded some powder coat goobers off the latch mechanism ears. It’s working great now.

I cowled up the plane and taxied to the pump for 5 gallons of fuel. I didn’t really need to, but wanted to get comfortable in the plane. When I got back I looked all over through the oil door to confirm no further oil and fuel leaks. Looked good. I checked on the nosewheel. It still seemed very tight. Didn’t roll very easily. I loosened the nut and re-torqued to 7 ft-lbs, which is the low end of the range in the construction manual. Still tight, but better. I guess the seals just have to break in.

Julie wanted to see my first flight, so I had some time to wait for her. I went over the checklists and my mental plan for the flight. My Flight Advisor Tom Staggs recommended keeping it a short flight with a primary purpose of just getting familiar with the plane. Good advice. I didn’t plan to do anything fancy.

I climbed in, buckled up, and started the engine.

After taxiing to 15, I did a run-up. No problems. Everything looked good. Pulled up to the hold-short line and asked the tower for clearance with the intention of circling over the airport at 2000′. “Cleared for takeoff on 15. Make left turns at 1500 or 2000′ at your discretion.”

From that point on, it was largely a blur. I stepped through everything without having to think about it. Add a little power, straight down the runway, advance to full throttle, add a little back pressure to get the nosewheel off the ground, and immediately afterward I was off the ground.

The left wing was a bit heavy. I drifted left a little, but corrected. Normal procedure would be to throttle back to 25″/2500 rpm, but I didn’t want to mess with the power setting until I was comfortably above the airport.

“What’s that loud whistle? Sounds like wind noise, it’s probably fine.” (It was.)

I turned crosswind around 1000′, and then kept a wide pattern as I climbed through 1500′. About the second turn is when a wide grin stretched across my face. She turned so effortlessly. Everything was in the green. “This is a piece of cake.” I powered back to 25″/2500 rpm.

As I approached 2000′, I powered back to 17″/2300 rpm. “Jeez, it’s still climbing.” I remembered Chris Kleen’s advice to keep the nose down in order to fly level. The picture out the window on an RV is just so different than a 172. The cowl is much further down in the sight view.

The tower was incredibly helpful calling out traffic below me a few times. I wanted to stay within glide distance of the airport, so I was turning often. After about 3 laps, I was ready to try the landing.

After calling tower, I descended down into the downwind. I flew the rest of the pattern exactly as Mike Seager taught me. I got a little too low on final, added some power, popped back up, over the threshold, throttle to idle. The light controls felt a little squirrelly. Seemed like I was all over the place, but once within about 20′ she smoothed right out. Slight flare and before I knew it the mains firmly planted on the ground. Kept the nosewheel off and let it settle down as she slowed down. Felt like a great landing.

I’ve always thought the “RV Grin” as kind of cliche, but you really can’t help but grin like a kid on Christmas after a perfect flight.

0.4 hours on the Hobbs. When I got back to the hangar, my Technical Counselor Geoff Sharples was there getting ready for a flight with some friends. I intentionally didn’t invite a big crowd for the first flights to keep the tension level down, but it was a very cool coincidence to have him there to see the finished product after a successful flight. (My goofy expression is from the incredibly bright reflection off the wing. Need to get this thing painted some day.)

I still don’t think it’s sunk into my head yet that the project I’ve been working on for the last 3.5 years can actually fly. The flight was so uneventful and easy, I felt like I got way to worked up for it. Better to over plan.

As for the plane, it flies incredibly well. The light touch on the controls at take off/landing will take some getting used to, but it feels great at altitude, very responsive. The power from the engine is awesome and steady.

I started making a list of people to thank, but it was getting very long and I was worried I’d leave somebody out. I will thank my wonderful wife Julie who not only encouraged me, but drove every rivet on the plane that I couldn’t reach myself. And my daughter Adele for her help along the way and for putting up with my long hours out in the garage.

To everybody else a hearty thanks. I’ve met people in person, and through the VAF forum, and through the Yahoo Group, and via email from all over the U.S. and the world. The RV community is a huge asset in building these planes.

I took the day off today to fix the squawks from yesterday. I could not even attempt to concentrate on work today. All night I had flying dreams and kept waking up going over the squawk list over and over in my head.

I already fixed the small fuel link yesterday. I guess I never tightened the nut on the fuel inlet fitting. I’m using an angle fitting. It threads in loosely and then a nut is reversed down on the threads to tighten the connection. It must have been leaking during my ground runs, but I didn’t notice it. The blue dye from the fuel was obvious on the nose gear leg after the first flight.

The other thing I fixed yesterday was the idle mixture. Terry indicated it was a bit rich. I backed off the adjustment 3 clicks.

Next fix was the oil leak. There was a bunch of oil droplets on the inside of the bottom cowl, back left corner. Traced it down to the oil cooler. I didn’t have the inlet/outlet fittings quite tight enough. Easiest way to fix it was to remove the cooler from the baffles, put another rotation on the fittings, and put it back together. Very messy job now that oil is in there. Hopefully that will stop the leaks.

I messed around with the cover panels a bit. We had trouble getting a couple of the screws in yesterday. I elongated a couple holes in some non-essential areas to make it all fit.

Last task was the canopy latch. Terry pointed out that I have everything so tight that the latches aren’t going completely over the rollers. I tried elongated the holes in the latches (per Vans instructions), but need to get a new Dremel bit. Mine is shot.

I checked out everything firewall forward very carefully. Touched every fuel, oil, electrical, and control cable connection to make sure nothing was loose. All looked good. The bottom cowl is back on now. All I have to do is fix the latch issue, put on the top cowl, and she’s ready to go again!!

Weather finally cleared up. Terry Burch came by about 2:30pm and checked over the plane before flying it. Being a fairly low-time pilot, I thought it was a good idea to have a more experienced pilot handle it.

Terry didn’t think securing the fuel flow sensor to the engine mount was necessary or a good idea. It didn’t give the fuel line enough slack for engine movement. I took care of that. He had a few other suggestions on minor stuff, but everything else looked good. We started putting panels and fairings on like crazy. Man there are an unbelievable number of screws to put in.

After two hours of that it was time to fire her up and taxi to 15 at Renton.

Terry called up tower and asked to circle above the airport. Lining up on the runway in front of the blast fence.

Take off.

He circled overhead for about half an hour doing all sorts of stuff, including stalls. SeaTac’s class B airspace is right overhead, so he was at 2000′ most of the time.

Then it was time to come in for a landing.

Lots of nosewheel shimmy forward and aft on roll out, but the bearing seals haven’t broken in yet.

Job well done Terry. Thanks!

The proud parents.

Squawks included securing the stick grips (oops), slight rudder trim needed, slightly heavy left wing, small oil leak at the cooler fittings, and a fuel leak at the pump (surprisingly forgot to tighten the inlet fitting–already fixed). Terry said it’s got a lot of power. It pushed him right back in the seat on take off. CHTs got a bit hot on climb out, up to 440°F on one, but cooled off as soon as he leveled off. He thought it might be a probe problem. Fuel pressure was reading way high as I expected, again probably a sensor calibration problem. All other numbers looked good. He said stick forces were light, but not too light. She stalls right at the bottom of the green. Stall with flaps was a knot or two away from the bottom of the white. He said the AF-3400 worked great and that he really liked it. He even checked out the Trutrak Digitrak II autopilot and said it was working fine, but the setup parameters needed a little tweaking.

Terry did a great job as test pilot. Even if you’re planning on doing the first flight yourself, he’s a great resource for checking out everything on the plane.

When I got down to the hangar this afternoon, a cherry RV was rolling down the runway. It turned toward my hangar and I saw it was Chris stopping by to inspire me with his beautiful RV-6. Like I need more inspiration. I’m dying to get flying. When he took off, his wheels left the ground well within 1000′ feet. He cruised about 6′ off the runway for a few thousand feet, started a gentle climb with wing rock right in front of me, and then shot right up to 1000′ AGL. Very cool.

Back to messing around the plane, I cut the rubber strips for the wing root fairings, and also cut the rubber strips for the strips under the horizontal stabilizer. I also remembered that I had some rubber trim for the forehead-cutter edge of the glare shield.

I then checked all the settings on the EFIS and EMS and decided to turn off the AOA display since it isn’t calibrated yet.

Looks like the weather might cooperate tomorrow. Fingers are crossed.

Still waiting on the weather. I cut down the wing root fairings a little bit so there is now a 1/4″ gap to the fuselage. After deburring and dimpling they are ready to go.

The weather is not cooperating very well for a first flight. Yesterday morning was nice and clear, but the person I have doing the test flight, Terry Burch, was stuck in California. We’ll hopefully get another window of good weather soon.

Adele and I went down to the hangar this evening and re-installed the wing tips. I’m leaving most of the access panels and covers off so Terry can take a look at everything before flying. I also updated the software on the AF-3400 screens.

I read over my operating limitations for the first 40 hours again. My test area is indeed a 50nm radius around Renton airport. It also specifies a flight test corridor “in order to safely conduct the type of anticipated maneuvers and tests, as appropriate.” Here’s the test area and corridor displayed on Google Maps. I take that to mean I should do my initial test flights and any of the testing that is potentially dangerous within the corridor. For the rest of the time, I can use the 50nm radius. That’s great–much better than I thought from my first skimming of the limitations.

I have a slip of pink paper that says the plane is now legally able to fly! The DAR inspection went very smoothly. I was a little concerned when two people showed up. Turns out an employee from the FAA MIDO office decided to do an “over the shoulder” on my DAR today. I figured that couldn’t be good, but he really just stood back and hung out for the most part. The DAR found a couple of minor things. He said I needed spare fuses accessible to the pilot. I put some in a Ziploc bag in the seat pocket. (I didn’t ask any further into the logic behind this, since my fuse panels are up under the forward skin access hatches. I guess it meets the letter of the law, if not the intent. I wouldn’t want to mess with replacing a fuse in flight anyway.) My COM1 antenna wire was a little tight behind the panel. I freed up some slack from down below. And the final item was my landing light wires needed a little more securing out at the wing tips. Done.

Two minor issues in the paperwork. I asked for a 50nm radius around Renton for the test flight area, because so much of the area is Sea-Tac class B space and densely populated. Instead I got a 60nm by 25nm box, approximately 1/3 of which is over the Cascades. I ended up with even less room than the 30nm radius. Not good for an airplane that cruises at 200mph.

The other issue is that my operating limitations prohibit aerobatics. Supposedly I was supposed to request that in my program letter. Well I checked the box that said my plane is aerobatics capable. What more was I supposed to do? I’m not too worried about it. I’ll add aerobatics later via the FSDO when I’m ready to try flying upside down.

Unfortunately the weather took a real turn for the worse this afternoon. Plus Terry, the guy doing my first flight, is stuck in California due to weather. He might fly commercial back up here. We’re going to keep an eye on the weather. Hopefully we’ll get a window of decent weather later this week.

I stopped by the hangar again today. I pulled the plane out, fired it up, ran it up to about 1700 RPM, and tested the left and right ignition. There was about a 50 RPM drop, which is good. I also cycled the prop a few times. Everything is working very well. Idle was about 900 RPM. The engine is really running like a champ.

After shutting down and putting the plane back in the hangar, I was thinking there should be at least one minor issue on the engine. I was checking the engine over very carefully for leaks. Didn’t see anything at all. And then I noticed one drip near the firewall. Took quite a while for the next drip. Traced it down to the fuel pressure sensor. I tightened it down another 1/2 turn, and it stopped. Now I’m happy. I found the one issue.

I vacuumed and cleaned out the interior. I secured a few wires and a few other minor things left on the list. I removed the spinner and wing tips to prep for the inspection. When I removed the spinner, I found a little bit of grease was flung out of the prop. Totally normal.

I then spent about 2 hours doing a mini annual condition inspection. I used Dan C’s list. It went pretty fast as all the covers are already off and will remain off. And nothing needs lubrication and nothing should be cracked at this point. I went over all the controls, wiring, plumbing, etc. I found a couple of jam nuts on the engine control ends that were torqued but not marked with torque seal. I also didn’t correctly mark a couple push tubes on the ailerons. I left one side of the jam nut unmarked, so I took care of that. They were already torqued. Very, very minor issues. She’s ready.

I finished out the day by renting a Cessna for hopefully the last time. After the transition training in Mike Seager’s RV-6A, the 172SP was like driving a bus. It has the same 180hp engine as my RV, but weighs much more and is not nearly as aerodynamic. Still, it was good to do a few landings, including one at my new home field, Renton.

Took care of a few more things on the list. My order from Vans arrived, so I put the final two bolts in the wing spar web and put the final hinge pin in the flaps. I secured the flap hinge pins in the middle with some safety wire.

I made a little bracket and used an adle clamp to secure the canopy release.

I found a better set up for testing the pitot and static systems. A recent article in Kitplanes had a table that showed inches of water versus airspeed. Both the AFS unit and the analog gauge are right on the money. I tried several readings up to 100 knots, and they were all within 1-2 knots.

Testing the static system wasn’t as easy. I have a table of inches of water versus altitude, but haven’t found out a way to verify the numbers yet. I did verify there are no leaks in the system.

Chris stopped by again, as did Jim. I spent a while shooting the breeze about RVs. Always enjoy that.

I can’t even remember the other things I took care of, but it’s all little stuff at this point. Before I left I put a little bit of JB Weld under the front of the canopy fairing where the fiberglass lifted up a tiny bit. I weighted it down with some rivets in a baggie.

Primary goal for the day was to taxi the plane. I started off by installing a few bolts in the wing spar that showed up from Vans before I forgot about them. I then took the cowl down to the wash rack area. It had quite a bit of amine blush on it from when I applied a skim epoxy coat. Luckily, it washes right off. Back at the hangar, I started prepping the plane for taxiing. I attached the wing tips, removed all the junk from the wings, checked the engine over one more time, and then put the cowl on.

The engine started right up, but was idling way too high, around 1300 rpm. During the first engine start it was idling too low, so I gave the idle screw one turn. That was way too much. I had to shut down and completely remove the cowl. I backed the screw off about 2/3 turn. Put the cowl back on and fired her up again. Idle was 1100 rpm. I’m starting to think the low idle was an anomaly. It was probably set right to begin with. 1100 rpm was OK for taxiing, though. I carefully released the brakes, and she started moving forward. Turned the corner around the hangar and called up Renton Ground. Taxied a few thousand feet up the field dragging the brakes to break them in. Did a 180 and returned. Shut down the engine. Perfectly according to plan, except I was planning on doing a “mag” check. Next time.

I have to say the plane turns much easier than Mike Seager’s trainer RV-6A. Maybe because there’s less weight with just me in it and 1/2 fuel. Maybe I’m just used to differential braking now. I took several shots of the EMS, as it doesn’t seem to log anything until the airspeed gets above a threshold. Here’s a representative screen. Everything looks okie dokie.

I am totally stoked to fly this thing. FAA inspection is Tuesday. If all goes well, hopefully she’ll fly this week!!!