Lufthans
Well Known Member
Guys,
Picking up my new-to-me RV-3B in Germany turned out to be quite an adventurous two-hour flight. The prop had so much imbalance in it that anything over 2100 rpm felt unsafe, after 5 minutes of flight the throttle came loose from its cable due to the piece of wire that was supposed to imitate a cotter pin parting ways, leaving the pin free to fall out, and to top that off the MGL engine monitor turned to reading very improbable (yet very unnerving) values for oil temp, oil pressure and EGT.
Returning to field of origin not really being an option due to narrow runway and a stiff crosswind making my upcoming dead-stick first ever landing in an RV3 less appealing than heading home and landing on our generous 3000' x 3000' grass airfield, I continued the flight. Juggling the throttle cable by reaching over the quadrant, pulling on the 3/4" of exposed cable with my middle and ring finger against the spring in the carb that wanted to pull to a highly vibrating full-throttle the whole time, in happy anticipation of the inevitable landing.
In short: my observations regarding control feel have been overshadowed somewhat by events. And after safely (dead stick) landing at my home airfield, the first thing I have done is take the plane apart for a FULL rebuild (despite the thing only having logged 34 hours total time since new).
What I recall though is that the elevator really felt heavy on the ground. It felt nothing like the lightness of an RV4 (which of course has a balanced elevator), and also a lot heavier than my Jodel or Fly Baby (which haven't). More akin to the feel of the T6 that I fly on occasions. Like you really need to put some muscle in keeping the stick pulled while taxiing.
This alone makes me consider balancing the elevator.
Or has my memory been blurred and are RV3 stick forces on the ground really not that high? Everything was moving freely, nothing binding. Just felt like somehow I had to lift a lot of elevator.
Picking up my new-to-me RV-3B in Germany turned out to be quite an adventurous two-hour flight. The prop had so much imbalance in it that anything over 2100 rpm felt unsafe, after 5 minutes of flight the throttle came loose from its cable due to the piece of wire that was supposed to imitate a cotter pin parting ways, leaving the pin free to fall out, and to top that off the MGL engine monitor turned to reading very improbable (yet very unnerving) values for oil temp, oil pressure and EGT.
Returning to field of origin not really being an option due to narrow runway and a stiff crosswind making my upcoming dead-stick first ever landing in an RV3 less appealing than heading home and landing on our generous 3000' x 3000' grass airfield, I continued the flight. Juggling the throttle cable by reaching over the quadrant, pulling on the 3/4" of exposed cable with my middle and ring finger against the spring in the carb that wanted to pull to a highly vibrating full-throttle the whole time, in happy anticipation of the inevitable landing.
In short: my observations regarding control feel have been overshadowed somewhat by events. And after safely (dead stick) landing at my home airfield, the first thing I have done is take the plane apart for a FULL rebuild (despite the thing only having logged 34 hours total time since new).
What I recall though is that the elevator really felt heavy on the ground. It felt nothing like the lightness of an RV4 (which of course has a balanced elevator), and also a lot heavier than my Jodel or Fly Baby (which haven't). More akin to the feel of the T6 that I fly on occasions. Like you really need to put some muscle in keeping the stick pulled while taxiing.
This alone makes me consider balancing the elevator.
Or has my memory been blurred and are RV3 stick forces on the ground really not that high? Everything was moving freely, nothing binding. Just felt like somehow I had to lift a lot of elevator.