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ZU-RVI - Now flying!

Janekom

Janekom

Well Known Member
Patron
Just to report that I have done the maiden flight late Friday (17 December) afternoon!
It flies very well and the only snag to report is a sticky left tank fuel sender unit.
Oil temp also in the yellow most of the time, but it was very hot and it is a new engine.
I just have to thank everyone who assisted us, our wifes for supporting us and our Lord for all these blessings.
See some of the pictures below.
Maiden1.jpg

Maiden2.jpg

Maiden3.jpg

Maiden4.jpg
 
Great news Jan!

It helps to motivate me to get my build completed when it's 15 degrees F outside and don't want to head to the hangar to work.

Congratulations!

bob

p.s. Time to update your signature.......
 
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Thanks guys!
What's next - flying off the proving flight hours :D
Talking about the cold - We are in the middle of summer with very hot conditions and that makes the run in part interesting.
Yesterday when I did the maiden it was about 93F and it made our 3700Ft AMSL field into roughly 6600ft AMSL field taking DA into consideration!
More pictures for you.
Maiden5.jpg

Maiden6.jpg

Maiden7.jpg
 
Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jan, congratulations on the escape of the surly bounds :D

Is that an RV Grin I see here????;)

Maiden7.jpg
 
Does look a bit familiar.

I am jealous of the shorts and short sleeve shirt, cold, windy, and raining here.

Good luck with the flying:D
 
Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Thank you for sharing the grin.
You are blessed indeed as are we.
 
Density Altitude

Although you may have had a high density altitude, I'll bet you didn't have to roll very far for take-off. That is one thing that amazed me with the -10 - how quickly she wants to fly!

Congrats.

Doug.
 
Doug you are right - amazing!
6HRS under the belt now and all going well.
One or two small snags to sort out as usual.
 
Sorry guys

Sorry guys - more pictures - cannot sleep!
In the second one - notice how the nose wheel sits offset - we were wondering why?
rv10_085.jpg

rv10_086.jpg
 
I can think of two possibilities for the wheel alignment:

1) You may have been in a slight slip when the picture was taken.

2) The wheel pant might be aligning itself with the prop slip stream... although I would expect it to turn the other direction.

I guess you have an excuse to take more pictures!
 
David Shelton said:
The wheel pant might be aligning itself with the prop slip stream... although I would expect it to turn the other direction.
Click to expand...

Dont forget it is summer where he lives, thus it is below the equator.

Southern hemisphere toilets swirl backward I have been told, so.......................

Just kidding:rolleyes:
 
More pictures sounds like fun!
Mike - not only toilets, even bath tubs and basins swirl backwards here :confused:
 
Also, why do you guys down under drive from the RIGHT seat but fly from the LEFT seat. Along with swirling bathtubs, winter is summer, and kangaroo boxing, it's all so strange!

Jae
 
I am always learing something here on VAF

Wow:eek:

I did not know South Africa has kangaroos, and Fosters.
 
My guess is the nose wheel was not pulled of soon enough on takeoff roll and you got a shimmy or it hit a bump at rotation. The tighness of the castor is to much for the airflow to turn it back straight.

This is just a guess. Not sure how else it could happen though.
 
Righto You Lot!!!!

We most certainly DO NOT drink that cr@p in the blue can. :eek:

They only sell that to gullible poms and yanks :D

Merry Christmas all from Downunder!!......and we promise not to empty Santa's sack before he gets to you folk on the West Coast! :)
 
Just to report that I have now done 11 Hrs on the dot! :D

No major snags yet. Found a blocked vent pipe on the left tank yesterday - suspect it was a small piece of tank sealant - quick built tank. I have tested it before and it was open :confused:

Slight oil sweating at one of the oil cooler fittings and a slightly heavy left wing.

My wonderful friends made a nice video as well. The camera ship is the RV8 now on the front page of the 2011 Vans calendar!

Enjoy the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah1nXBuK9iA
 
Janekom said:
Found a blocked vent pipe on the left tank yesterday - suspect it was a small piece of tank sealant - quick built tank. I have tested it before and it was open :confused:
Click to expand...

Interesting...........

I had the exact thing happen on the left tank also. Caught it before the first flight during pre-flight.
 
Very nicely done video, buuut.....

...at this stage (11 hours), consider flying as high as practical to give yourself a bit more margin for a better glide....around 5000-7000', until the engine has nearer 35-40 hours on it, Jan. I don't mean to rain on your parade but low level, high speed passes can be made later, when the engine has proven itself beyond a doubt.

Your enthusiasm mirrors mine and I've done the same things with both my -6 and the -10 but mine has a record established with 330 hours on her.

Happy flying,
 
Mike, I have tested the vents before the first flight and what baffles me is that both were ok then. This happened after 6 hours.

Point taken Pierre, thank you. Tongue in cheek I would like to ad that I was flying between 5000 and 7000 AMSL. At our altitudes I cannot get much higher than 1000 ft off the ground in order to maintain the high power needed to make the rings set properly.
 
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Some feedback:
Take-off is nothing but spectacular specially now when flying on my own.
The control harmony is good, but all controls are heavier compared to the two seater RV's which is normal.
Like all bigger AC you need to use the elevator trim a l lot. I found that I have to trim fully back and even then the elevator gets very heavy in the flare.
I have experimented by using 15 degrees (half) flap on landing and it gets much easier then. Obviously this will change a lot when one flies with pax and luggage. At this stage I am approaching at about 75 kts and the landing and ground roll is so short that I can easily get off the runway at Brits at the halfway mark.

At this stage there is also a slight tendency to roll left. Re-adjusting the one gear fairing as well as a small temporary trim on the rudder fixed most of it. Needs further fine tuning as I go along.

SPEED - I reckon that a good economical cruise will be about 165 kts at a fuel burn of about 11.0 US gal per hour. I am seeing a TAS of over 170 kts most of the time and that is at lowish altitudes.

Analyzing the downloaded engine data also shows that cyl 1 and 2 are constantly running hotter than the rest and it is now time to start trimming the small baffle plates in front of the cylinders. Oil consumption is down to very little and all temps and pressures are looking good! The decision to go for the carbon fiber plenum was good.

The next phase of my test flying will be stalls and calibrating the Dynon AOA, best rate of climb speeds, best glide speeds, as well as a climb test.
 
The big difference between this airplane and the two-seaters....

....will really become apparent when you climb to around 8,000'

Mine gains an incredible amount of TAS up high...much more so than my -6 and it's not unusual to see 176 Kts with the two-bladed blended airfoil prop, also much faster than anything else. I was advised by an aeronautical engineer to try 9000-10,000', where that airfoil will really love it.

WOT yielded 211 MPH or 183 kts at 800 ASL, according to the Dynon, during last Spring's Race to Ridgeland...145 miles in 45 minutes or so. I never came close to those numbers in my 180 horse -6A.

Have fun,
 
Thanks Pierre,
Looking forward to the high altitude stuff.

Did some stall testing and also set up the AOA at the time.
In summary - I think it is really difficult to stall the 10 by accident. You really have to abuse it to introduce a proper stall. The same with trying to get it into an incipient spin.
 
I have also modified my towbar in order to tow it by car to the fuel bay - cannot pull this beast on my own.
The handle part is removable and then I just add the extension with the tow hitch. Works like a charm!

rv10_088.jpg
 
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Did a climb test

Yesterday we have worked hard again replacing the now painted wing root fairings and what goes with it.
Calibrated the left tank as we have replaced the sender unit.
Also trimmed the baffle plates in front of cyl 1 and 2 and a number of other small jobs.

Then............. we decided to do a climb test. We did not do it at MAUW (not allowed to carry pax at this stage) but mainly to determine e few things.
1) Can we climb at full tilt on a hot day to FL whatever without having to step climb
2) Test all systems like ignition, fuel, etc at altitude because it can go wrong up there with the thinner air

Below is a picture still on our way up at FL164

rv10_089.jpg


Here is a picture of the EMS. See how close the EGT's and CHT's are. Then notice that we still had 16 inch of MAP.
The bigger oil cooler also did it's job as we never had to step climb. The 222 in this picture is the highest we have seen.
We have only varied the climb speed very slightly starting at a TAS of about 125 and ended with a TAS of about 95 kts.
And obviously I had to throw a lot of avgas into it's throat to keep it cool. Initially about 75 LPH and about 50 LPH at the top.

rv10_090.jpg


Oxygen and all!

rv10_092.jpg


The view from up there!

rv10_091.jpg


More RV grins after the flight.

rv10_093.jpg


The verdict - mission accomplished and NO problems!
ATC spoiled our fun at 17600 ft and could not accomodate us further up.
At that stage we still had a climb rate of 500 ft/min !
The average rate of climb from 5000 to 17600 ft was about 600 ft/min.
We had a data logger with us and I will prepare and post a graph later on.
 
Outstanding, Jan.

Did you by any chance try and see what kind of cruise speeds you get at 75% at around 10,000'? What was your OAT when the oil was at 222?

Best,
 
No time to test the speed

Hi Pierre,
As it was a climb test where we did not want to step climb or stop climbing and the fact that there were some big Mamas ( Charlie Bravos ) close to base, we did not do that.

What I can tell you is that the AOT was sitting at +1 degrees Celsius. As it was a very hot day with lots of weather developments, the DA was 19700ft at our 17500ft on 1013mb.

The moment we leveled out, the oil temp came back to about 185.

I will try to cruise testing later on. File a flight plan the works.
 
Try to keep your CHT's under 400F.

Those little baffle plates in front of 1&2 have been reduced and then the No.1 removed from our -10 as they seem to serv no useful purpose. Our CHT's are all more even now.
 
WHAT A WEEK!

What a week :!: :!:
Tuesday :- Worked hard to finish all the tasks to do with the inspection. By about 16h00 our AP, Joos Cloete arrived and gave it a clean bill of health.
Thank you Joos!!

Thursday:- Arrived at 06h00 in the morning at CAA's offices where Piet Fourie did the necessary in a flash. Thank you Piet!!
Left CAA before 07h00 with the ATF (Initial Authority to Fly) in my hands!

Saturday:- Took my wife for her first flight. So officially she is pax nr:1. Chris also went with to Coves where RVI will live soon.
rv10_096.jpg


Then took my kids and grand children for their first ride.
rv10_094.jpg


Just a nice pic afterwards with some typical thunder storms in the background.
rv10_095.jpg
 
An incredible accomplishment indeed, Jan.

You'll soon find that the airplane grows on you so well that every flight is a thrill! My wife told me the other day that she can't wait for the weekend so we can do the 30 minute flight to the ocean:)

Congratulations again,
 
Just a nice pic afterwards with some typical thunder storms in the background.
rv10_095.jpg
[/QUOTE]

Jan,

Great job! I will be starting on my RV-10 project soon, so your pics are very inspiring. Be sure to take your family up as often as possible!

Mike
 
CHT's that high (Thread creep)

As a Cirrus driver, we were always told to keep the CHT's to below 390 in the climb and then below 380 in cruise. I see that you hit 435, is that normal in the RV world? I know the engine manufacturers allow upwards of 430 - 450, but I was told that you can really cook the cylinders at those temps and a runaway cylinder would be harder to spot. Any information would greatly be appreciated. But besides that, you have a very nice bird!
 
It's already growing on me

Thanks Pierre and Mike and jmp470 for the compliments!

Then to answer the CHT question. Remember that it was a climb test up to 17600ft on a very hot day. Then secondly I can quote the following out of my engine Lycoming manual.
At Bayonet Location - For maximum service life of the engine maintain cylinder head temperature between 150F and 435F during continuous operation
Click to expand...
In another table the maximum is given as 500F. I also discussed this with one of our trusted RV gurus and engineer and he agrees with this.
 
Jan

I am sure I will get plenty of backup here....the Manuals are WRONG!!!!

400F max in the climb maybe 420 for a minute or so but do not operate over 400 and not above 380 in cruise. If you are struggling early on with a new engine I can relate but after breaking in temps get better.

I can not stress this enough, go talk to a metalurgist about the properties of aluminium alloys after 400F :eek:

I may have mentioned this before, read all the John Deakin articles on enginemanagment.

Links are here, so after running in hard (first 30+ hours), do this! Its the Bible of engines 101.

http://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/182179-1.html
http://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/182176-1.html
http://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/182583-1.html
http://www.avweb.com/news/pelican/183094-1.html

You may think I am on my soap box, and may think I am over the top, but I am damned serious. Failure to do so is foolish.

Read these.....better still print them off and make a book and read them over every night, say one section a night for about 6 weeks, so each section is read 10 times.....yes TEN TIMES until you know it better than JD himself.

You will tank me later for being a PITA about it!

Cheers

DB:cool:
 
RV6 builder meets RV10 builder halfway around the world!

This past Saturday I was privileged to have Jay Pearlman and company visiting at Brits Airfield. They are on a business trip from the USA and Canada and Jay contacted me some time ago.

Below: Jay Pearlman and myself have been discussing various items with regards to the 7A in the background, like all builders do ;)
rv10_097.jpg


Then we went for a flight in our RV10. Below are Ellsworth and Karen LeDrew in the back of the RV10.
rv10_098.jpg


Below is Jay next to me with his wife Francoise posing on the wing. Sadly she lost the draw for the RV flip.
rv10_099.jpg



What a privilege to meet people like this and then be able to talk RV's non stop
Thanks guys
 
you gotta see it in person

Got a ride with Jan in his RV-10. Sitting around with a cool drink before launching off, we kept staring at it - beautiful construction. Alas, it got even better when we got in. I would love to have a set of seats like those and all the toys in the panel. Thanks Jan for the ride.
 
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