Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

I’ve actually been flying the last two days, a highly unusual event around here in the winter. Yesterday was marginal, but I managed to find a hole in the clouds. Today was absolutely outstanding. I could see all the way from Mount Baker to The Sisters in Oregon. That’s about 150 miles of visibility in each direction. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera to take any pictures.

I took off from Renton in the mid-afternoon and headed for Hoquiam out at the coast. I landed there mainly so I could count the cross-country time, and then cruised down the coast at around 1500′. Very scenic.

At Willapa Bay I turned East, went south of Olympia and up the east side of the sound. I didn’t really see many planes around until I got near Renton again. 2.0 hours to the coast and back with 1/2 hour of goofing off while I was out there. The RV is truly a time machine. It’s normally a 2.5-3.0 drive one way to the ocean.

We definitely had a temperature inversion going on today. I was seeing around 55°F near the ground and 58°F up around 3000-4000′. It was even still in the 50’s up at 6500′. Very warm day for Februrary. I’m glad I got out flying in it.

I finally dumped the last 2 months worth of pictures from the camera, so I’ll just post them all at once. This first picture is from a short flight after Christmas when it had obviously snowed recently in the foothills east of Seattle.

This was a trip Julie and I took just around the Seattle area on New Years Eve Day. Unfortunately the mountains are a little blurry in the first pic, but the second one shows you what they would have looked like had the camera cooperated. That’s Mount Rainier with St Helens in the background.

Here are the merry flyers.

Julie wanted to see the Olympics closer up, so we headed over toward the west.

And here’s a couple pics of my intersection fairings in progress.

Those fairings are now complete (except maybe a tiny bit more trimming for size) and installed. I’m seeing around 165 kts at 75% power at 8000′ pressure altitude with all the main gear fairings and the nose wheel fairing installed. I just have the nose gear leg and intersection fairing left to fabricate and install. That should give me a few more knots.

I also made a modification to the SafeAir static ports following Scott Will’s lead. I took 2 engine baffle seal pop rivets (which are identical to what Vans supplies in their static port kit), removed the mandrels, drilled the static port holes out to #30, and JB Welded the pop rivet heads in place. I went up yesterday and did a 3 course GPS run and plugged the numbers into the magic spreadsheet. My airspeed error at cruise went from 4 knots to 1 knot. The static ports certainly don’t look as pretty, but they work much better. I’m happy.

It’s been too long since I updated this log. The weather in Seattle this winter has been crummy. At least from a flying perspective. I’ve been getting in short flights when I can, but mostly working on finishing up the leg and wheel fairings. I’ll post some more pictures on that soon.

I went down to the hangar today to work on a few things. When I got there I noticed a plane in the pattern. Sure enough, the ceilings were at 3000′ and it looked even clearer to the north. I was not really expecting to be able to fly today.

I pulled the plane out of the hangar, pre-flighted, and taxied to 15 for a run-up. A week ago I worked on my brake pedals a bit as the brakes were starting to drag. The pedals wouldn’t return completely, which seemed to get worse in the recent cold weather. Opening up the holes in the rudder weldments and loosening the castle nuts a half turn or so took care of it nicely. She taxis great again.

After an immediate clearance from the tower, I took off into the empty airspace around Renton. I climbed up to 3000′ east of Bellevue and noticed it was even clearer up north. So onward and upward toward Paine and 5000′. It’s somehow hard to believe how much I was enjoying flying on such a marginal weather day, but it felt really good to get up in the sky again. It felt like the clouds were clearing away just for me.

I leveled off and watched the airspeed climb. I recently finished installing my main leg fairings and intersection fairings. I was seeing roughly 165 knots at 24″/2400 RPM. I still have one remaining fairing to complete, and then I’ll do some official speed runs. But she definitely feels faster.

I also made a fix to my static ports a few weeks ago. Many people have been seeing problems with these Safeair static ports. They read the static pressure a bit too high, which causes the altimeter and airspeed to be slightly low (about 3-4 knots at cruise speed). The problem is that the ports are too flush and I guess are still in the boundary air layer. I drilled out the ports and epoxied in some dome-head baffle seal pop rivet heads that are identical to the stock Vans static ports. I tried to do some GPS ground speed runs, but it was a bit too bumpy. I’ll have to wait for a smoother day to verify that fix.

I swooped down into the Duvall/Carnation valley getting near Vne and then back toward Bellevue. I called up Renton and was directed right into 15. The controller even asked that I keep my speed up. (Like he even needs to ask.) I was at around 1500′ at the south tip of Mercer Island going around 150 knots. I eased the power back, slowed her down, flaps down, a slight touch of throttle on the way down, flare, gentle touch down, and off the runway in just over 1000′.

I was back at the hangar in 0.7 hours. Not a long flight, but definitely one of the most fun I’ve had this winter.