Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

We had some terrific weather over the weekend. What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than by flying around the patch for a while?

The sky was really clear and made for some beautiful views.

The air was really steady, so I did some calibration work. Way back during my phase I test period, I did some simple test runs before by guessing at the wind direction aloft and flying into and away from the wind and averaging the result. I ran across a better method on Kevin Horton’s site at the bottom of this page. You basically do 3 runs at 90-120° apart, record some numbers of your instruments and GPS, and plug the numbers into the spreadsheet. It even calculates the windspeed and direction which were very close to the winds aloft prediction. The result was that my EFIS was reading a true airspeed of 147 knots when it should have been reading 152 knots. I’ve also noticed that my altimeter doesn’t match my GPS, so I suspect a slight static position error. I’ve heard others having some luck gluing a hollow rivet head onto their static ports, so I might try that.

I also finally calibrated my AOA indicator. On the first flight I was only able to calibrate the flaps down values as my flap sensor wasn’t working right. After a minor fix on the ground, I was able to do the flaps up calibration the next day as well. Zero G maneuvers are fun, and exciting with everything in the cabin going up in the air.

Saturday, Adele and I flew over to Bremerton and had lunch with my friend Steve and his parents. I’d heard that the restaurant at the airport had some good fish and chips, and I was not disappointed. It was a fun flight over and a fun lunch. Adele flew most of the way over and back.

There was a wall of dark clouds that ran from Renton to Bremerton and south. It was very intimidating, but it never moved north. You can kind of see it in the background of this shot of the Seattle skyline.

I also did some self-portraits with the plane in the evening light on Friday.