Targa strip done
Thursday night I sanded and painted the canopy targa strip. I just used the same Rustoleum that I’ve been using for the interior. I figured that would make it stand out less. Friday night I went down to the hangar and glued it into position after roughing up the plexiglass. I used epoxy, but should have thickened it up a little bit with some flox. The epoxy wanted to run everywhere. I taped it in place in a few spots and let it set up overnight.
I went down to check on it Saturday, and it turned out pretty good. I was having bad dreams overnight that I had epoxied the canopy shut, but luckily that wasn’t the case. The tape I used to mask off around the strip got caught up in the epoxy a bit, but I was able to get it out. And one spot right at the top is lacking in epoxy a bit, but the whole thing is still very solid.
Went out for a short test flight, and it worked great. No more whistle. So much more pleasant.
While flying around, I noticed a plane that looked like it was a long way off and headed right for me. Normally those little spots grow pretty quickly, but this one took a long time to get close. Turns out it wasn’t close at all, just really big. It was the Boeing DreamLifter. I’m glad it was far away as it has a mean wake turbulence.
Coming back in, I kept power and altitude up a little longer than usual to see how fast the plane can drop. The problem is getting it to slow down from cruise to Vfe (flap extension speed). It just doesn’t want to slow down. Once the flaps are extended, it slows down pretty good. I was over the numbers and still had a few hundred feet of altitude. With the 5000′ runway I could have still landed it on the last half of the runway, but decided to not risk it. I put in full power, told tower I was going around, retracted flaps and climbed like a rocket. Second attempt was perfect. That was my first go-around. Good to practice those anyway.
When I got back, I wasn’t motivated to start something new (e.g. the nose wheel fairing), so I headed home.
Sunday I went down sort of late and tinkered with things for a while.
I jacked up the nosewheel. Turning the wheel is still pretty stiff, but there’s no longer any black stuff coming out of the bearing. I checked the breakout force for the castering, and it’s still right on spec.
I tried out my new oil filter cutter on the filter from a few weeks ago. It works great, although next time I should poke a hole in the outside of the can to let the oil drain out first. Made sort of a mess. Tried cutting the paper filter element out, but need a bigger knife.
I tinkered and checked on a few more things, visited with a hangar neighbor who has a Vari Viggen, and eventually decided to go for a fun flight around the patch.
I took off to the south, which I haven’t done before. I usually head Southeast so I can get out from under the class B space and climb up a bit. This time I stayed around 2500′ down to Lake Tapps and Puyallup, climbed up and went over McChord, and then headed north by Port Orchard and Bainbridge Island. I crossed Puget Sound north of Seattle, over to Bellevue, and back in.
I loaded the latest firmware on my AFS screens the previous night, so I was interested to see what had changed. The lean of peak detection was better, but still not great. It’s showing the temperature delta as being much closer now. The span is now around 20 degrees. However, it’s saying my number 1 cylinder is rich of peak and the others are lean, which isn’t true. The screen rotation is now sorta configurable. I can remove screens from the rotation, which is nice. I don’t care for the analog gauge screen. Other than that, it looks the same.