She flies!!
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.