Pounding out the hours
The test phase is a strange thing. I want to explore all the capabilities of this plane. On the other hand, there are hundreds of RV-7A’s out there and they all fly pretty much the same. Plus many of the recommended tests aren’t relevant. For example, the fuel consumption test. I’ve already determined that the fuel flow reading on the EMS is accurate to within 3%. Magnetic calibration: already done by the EFIS. Aerobatics: can’t do them until I get sign off from the FSDO. Night flight: not supposed to do that until the test phase is over. On top of all that, 40 hours in a plane is a long time. At this point, I just want to get the test phase over with so I can carry passengers and leave my 50nm cage.
After work yesterday, I got in 2 hours. I just went out and putted around. I snapped a bunch of pictures, and I can’t really remember where they are now. Some are along highway 2, and some are from the Darrington area. Flying in and out of the canyons is very cool, and the views are spectacular.
A few more shots of Snoqualmie Falls.
Today I went up in the morning for 2 hours and joined up with Jim in his Boredom Fighter for a little bit. It’s tough getting an RV to slow down to 80ish. After he went in, I headed down south and just bombed around for a while.
Back at the hangar it was oil change time. My oil burn has stabilized at one quart every 6-7 hours. Not great, but I’m hoping it improves once I switch to real oil. I opened up the case of Exxon Elite that Mattituck sent me way back when and I discovered some handy little red pour spouts. Mattituck should have put them in the mineral oil box, so I would have found them sooner. These things rock! You can turn the oil flow on and off at will. And I can empty a quart into the engine in about 20 seconds. I got a system down where I collected all the residuals while I poured the next quart. Recovered an extra 1/4 quart that way.
What’s wrong with this picture?
While I had the cowl off, I decided to check everything out again. I’ve looked over the throttle cable a hundred times by now and never noticed that I forgot to safety the bolts for the bracket. Luckily, the bolts were still tight. I obviously immediately put some safety wire on there. I also discovered that when I was testing the fuel pressure sender, I didn’t get it put back on tight enough. There was a slow fuel leak there that I took care of.
I put the cowl back on and went back up for another 3 hours. I did a full loop around the perimeter of my 50nm radius test area, exploring a few areas along the way. I went by Enumclaw, Olympia, Port Townsend, Arlington, and North Bend. And that was only 2 hours. I ran into some turbulence along the way and used the opportunity to set the sensitivity of the autopilot. I cranked it up from the initial settings, but then it seemed to twitchy. I ended up with a number just slightly above the default settings (I think it was 10 for roll and 12 for pitch.)
I took a couple shots of Lake Cushman out near the Olympics. It’s a beautiful lake. Looks like it belongs in Norway.
Later on the air smoothed out quite a bit, I guess because it clouded up. I took advantage of that and did some of the climb tests down south by Olympia.
Total so far is 34 hours. I’m within spitting distance now.