Sonex N439M First Flight!
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 11:02 pmSonex:
- Scratch built
- Conventional gear
- 5.25 years
- 2,300 hours
- AeroVee w/ AeroInjector
- 100LL
- Airport: 6B6 (Stow/Minuteman)
I Went up this morning around 9:15am. Just .3 on the Hobbs, but it went well. Other than the fact I had no air speed! I later found I had swapped pitot & ASI connections at the wing root after putting the wings on. I thought I was SO careful, so not sure how I did that!! Really mad at myself for that. But having flown the factory Sonex, I just relied on sound, feel and muscle memory. I bounced the first landing so powered up and went around. 2nd landing was perfect, and is the one you see on the YouTube video.
http://youtu.be/sOp9UugkzC0
This week I put in a new Sonex throttle cable and routed it per the Sonex factory setup. I replaced the braided cable with solid stainless wire, though. Worked perfectly!! Very smooth!
I went back up in the afternoon for a half hour. Better take-off. OK landing. Engine ran great (AeroVee). Little touching the yellow arc on a few temps while climbing, but flattened out the climb and they were better. By the time I got to the end of my 30 minute flight all the temps were looking very good, so didn't really have to baby it. That's good news. Did some steep turns, a little zero-G, some slow flight, and lots of "enjoying the scenery". Stayed within gliding distance of the airport, puttering around at about 3,000'.
Looking forward to going out again tomorrow. There is a grass runway airport (Crow Island) 3 miles from my airport. I overflew it today, but I think I'll land there tomorrow. Funny how a tailwheel airplane makes you HAPPY for grass runways!
Plane flew really smooth. I can't quite tell if I have a slightly heavy right wing. Need to fly it a few more times. But if it is, it's not much I really felt comfortable up there after the first 15 minutes (of the 2nd flight). Landing still makes me a bit anxious. I'm flying the numbers, but it just "looks" like I'm high and fast. So I have to watch my airspeed or I'll get too slow.
So only 39.2 hours to go before I can share the enjoyment. Everything was running so well today, it REALLY seems a shame to have to fly 40 hours in a test area!
Numbers:
- OAT about 73 deg
- Idle at 1,070 or so with primary and secondary ignitions on.
- Idle at 1,000 rpm on primary-only.
- On steeper climbs, and the beginning of the 2nd flight
- CHT's all in the green most of the time. #1 & #3 sometimes up to 404 deg max. 95% of the time they were in the green.
- EGT pretty much in the green all the time.
- After 15 minutes EGT and CHT all stayed in the green
- Oil temp (with oil cooler) around 165-180 when up to temp (which took a long time)
- Oil pressure
- On 1st flight = 48 psi
- On 2nd flight = 38 to 39 psi
So how do those numbers look for an engine with just 2.2 hours of total time?
Mike
- Scratch built
- Conventional gear
- 5.25 years
- 2,300 hours
- AeroVee w/ AeroInjector
- 100LL
- Airport: 6B6 (Stow/Minuteman)
I Went up this morning around 9:15am. Just .3 on the Hobbs, but it went well. Other than the fact I had no air speed! I later found I had swapped pitot & ASI connections at the wing root after putting the wings on. I thought I was SO careful, so not sure how I did that!! Really mad at myself for that. But having flown the factory Sonex, I just relied on sound, feel and muscle memory. I bounced the first landing so powered up and went around. 2nd landing was perfect, and is the one you see on the YouTube video.
http://youtu.be/sOp9UugkzC0
This week I put in a new Sonex throttle cable and routed it per the Sonex factory setup. I replaced the braided cable with solid stainless wire, though. Worked perfectly!! Very smooth!
I went back up in the afternoon for a half hour. Better take-off. OK landing. Engine ran great (AeroVee). Little touching the yellow arc on a few temps while climbing, but flattened out the climb and they were better. By the time I got to the end of my 30 minute flight all the temps were looking very good, so didn't really have to baby it. That's good news. Did some steep turns, a little zero-G, some slow flight, and lots of "enjoying the scenery". Stayed within gliding distance of the airport, puttering around at about 3,000'.
Looking forward to going out again tomorrow. There is a grass runway airport (Crow Island) 3 miles from my airport. I overflew it today, but I think I'll land there tomorrow. Funny how a tailwheel airplane makes you HAPPY for grass runways!
Plane flew really smooth. I can't quite tell if I have a slightly heavy right wing. Need to fly it a few more times. But if it is, it's not much I really felt comfortable up there after the first 15 minutes (of the 2nd flight). Landing still makes me a bit anxious. I'm flying the numbers, but it just "looks" like I'm high and fast. So I have to watch my airspeed or I'll get too slow.
So only 39.2 hours to go before I can share the enjoyment. Everything was running so well today, it REALLY seems a shame to have to fly 40 hours in a test area!
Numbers:
- OAT about 73 deg
- Idle at 1,070 or so with primary and secondary ignitions on.
- Idle at 1,000 rpm on primary-only.
- On steeper climbs, and the beginning of the 2nd flight
- CHT's all in the green most of the time. #1 & #3 sometimes up to 404 deg max. 95% of the time they were in the green.
- EGT pretty much in the green all the time.
- After 15 minutes EGT and CHT all stayed in the green
- Oil temp (with oil cooler) around 165-180 when up to temp (which took a long time)
- Oil pressure
- On 1st flight = 48 psi
- On 2nd flight = 38 to 39 psi
So how do those numbers look for an engine with just 2.2 hours of total time?
Mike