Sonex N439M First Flight!

[mike.smith]

Sonex:
- 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

[Bryan Cotton]

Mike,
Congratulations! Very inspiring for those of us still slogging away in the salt mines.

[Bacon8tor]

Congratulations, Mike!

[Sonex1517]

Way to go Mike! Congratulations!!


Robbie Culver
Sonex 1517
Chicagoland
Tails and Wings complete - finishing fuselage.
N1517S reserved

[ScottM-Sonex1629]

Great job and congrats!

[SonexN76ET]

Mike,

Congratulations! You must feel fantastic after a successful first flight! Great video! Great numbers!

[Sonex1462]

Congratulation!! Looks great!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[radfordc]

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!

Interesting that you switched to solid cable. My buddy Bob went the other way. He switched to the braided cable after his solid wire broke on approach to the runway at Oshkosh a couple years ago.

[mike.smith]

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!

Interesting that you switched to solid cable. My buddy Bob went the other way. He switched to the braided cable after his solid wire broke on approach to the runway at Oshkosh a couple years ago.

There have been problems with both. Braided cable too flexible; solid cable breaking. All the broken cables I know of were due to the wire being clamped in such a way at the throttle connector, that the wire was not pivoting with the fitting, but instead was flexing with each push/pull of the throttle. I made sure mine is rotating. I feel more comfortable with the solid wire. Not sure there is a "right" way on this one.

Mike

[radfordc]

Bob's story is that he checked and lubed the swivel during his annual in June and the wire broke in July. Might be a pre-flight inspection item?