SonexBuilders.net

Beautiful airplane and congratulations Bryan!

Here is a cut and paste from an email report:
I did a weather check:
KRFD 251720Z 2518/2618 VRB05KT P6SM FEW060 BKN250

For the non-pilots, that is a terminal forecast from Rockford airport, which is close to us. Translated, it means "it doesn't get better than this."

So, here is the video:
https://youtu.be/HqVvFJHf5q0

I'll confess that I was pretty nervous during the day all the way through the taxi to the runway. Pretty much once I got the throttle in, I felt fine. I climbed at 80kts. Maybe 60kts would be a normal climb speed, but the extra speed 1) gave me margin above stall in an unfamiliar, unproven airplane and 2) gave better cooling on our brand new engine that Adam built when he was 14 (but almost 15). I was getting a little over 3100 RPM in the climb and somewhere around 700 feet per minute (fpm) climb. Pretty good.

Once I got to 3000' or so, I leveled out and leaned the mixture. I never got far from the airport. I miss the glider flying so if the engine quit, I wanted a chance to relive that joy ending with a landing back at home. I did some boring around at 3000 RPM and was getting about 100 knots (kts, or about 115 mph). I had my first issue that my exhaust gas temperature (EGTs) went high, and that was a pain. I was not really worried about high EGTs, especially because the more critical cylinder head temperatures (CHTs) were looking great - like under 300F. But when the display was alarming for EGTs, it would not let me look at the other parameters. Oil pressure was running around 70 psi and 220F - that was pretty good. I did some wide open throttle and saw about 3400 RPM and 120 kts. I did a bunch of turns, and some stalls with and without flaps. Without flaps it stalled around 50kts, as predicted. With flaps, it stalled 2 or 3 kts lower. The airplane has a nice pre-stall buffet to let you know you are running out of lift margin.

You will notice that the gopro video at the end was smeary - we had an oil leak happen suddenly. Turns out the oil pressure sender had gotten loose:
https://youtu.be/cgE3QmbsQ3s

That's an easy fix, but man what a mess. At least I know the aluminum belly skins and the titanium tail gear won't rust.

Summary - it ran and flew awesome. More to come.

N111YX wrote:Beautiful airplane and congratulations Bryan!

Thanks Kip! Your tail mounted pitot probe design worked great.

Congratulations Bryan!!! Way to show off your belly polish job =D

My biggest oil leak at the beginning was the same, at the oil pressure sensor/tap on the engine block. I ended up tapping the threads a bit deeper into the block for a deeper set. Gotta be careful not to over-torque it for fear of cracking the block, so it took me some trial and error to finally solve it.

Greaser wheel-landing even. Well done!

Rynoth wrote:Congratulations Bryan!!! Way to show off your belly polish job =D

My biggest oil leak at the beginning was the same, at the oil pressure sensor/tap on the engine block. I ended up tapping the threads a bit deeper into the block for a deeper set. Gotta be careful not to over-torque it for fear of cracking the block, so it took me some trial and error to finally solve it.

Greaser wheel-landing even. Well done!

Thanks Ryan! I know I was worried about cracking the block when I put it in. Here at work they use loctite 515 on pipe threads. I'm going to try that and also drill the corners of the hex for safety wire.

The wheel landing was an accident. I didn't realize I was on the ground until I heard the tire squeal. It seems that when lightly loaded those gear really shake. Is that normal?

Congratulations Bryan. Plane looks great.

Bryan Cotton wrote:The wheel landing was an accident. I didn't realize I was on the ground until I heard the tire squeal. It seems that when lightly loaded those gear really shake. Is that normal?

Honestly I couldn't say. Did you feel the shake in the cockpit? I've not had a camera on my landing gear. It may have been a function of speed also, you're still a ways off from a stall doing a light wheel landing so speed was probably a bit higher than a 3-point landing. That and the light load, maybe the tire was actually skipping rapidly sideways due to the toe angle. Probably not common, but maybe not necessarily abnormal.

Hi bryan,
Way to go!

The wheel shake maybe(?)
1) unbalanced tire- may need some wheel balance glass beads
or gear stiffener

flyboy accessories has some nice wood trailing edge wood i put on gear, than wrapped w glass.
they have at their osh booth.

are u coming to the bbq tonite waynes?

congrats!

michael.

WaiexN143NM wrote:Hi bryan,
Way to go!

The wheel shake maybe(?)
1) unbalanced tire- may need some wheel balance glass beads
or gear stiffener

flyboy accessories has some nice wood trailing edge wood i put on gear, than wrapped w glass.
they have at their osh booth.

are u coming to the bbq tonite waynes?

congrats!

michael.

Michael,
I can't make the BBQ tonight, unfortunately. Other than the first flight this is not my year.

I was very light on the gear when I got that shake, and I wonder if the wheel is properly aligned before weight is on it. I'm going to try a few more landings before I do anything.

If I need to dampen the gear, I'll make something. That's what I do!

Area 51% wrote:A.D.T.
Nice!

It took me this long to figure out the acronym - no argument!