Our first flight is now a memory. Aside from draggy brakes and no airspeed it went pretty well. Until it was time to land....
Airspeed started going out at about 20 feet. I've since diagnosed a loose Safe Air connector as the cause and fixed it. Of course I had to remove the seat pans to get at it.
Without airspeed (the 430W ground speed was almost an adequate backup)
I didn't get my flight test card fully run, but I did climb to 3000 AGL and slow down a bit to see what handling was like. If there was a heavy wing I was too keyed up to notice it.
The landing took three tries. Kept coming in high and fast. On the last try, with the throttle all the way back I was running out of pavement and not slowing down so I chopped the mags. She still floated a while, but the landing was acceptable and I still had a 1000 feet left when down to a slow taxi.
The brakes are the classic sticky master cylinder problem. I finally proved that today. Now where was that other thread....
I had to be reminded to grin, since I wasn't following the checklist anymore.
Many thanks to my Wife for putting up with this for 3.7 years, my many friends who took time to help drive rivets, to Wayne Wagner who gave the project a home and has been there to help in these finishing steps, and to Deene Ogden and Seth Hancock of EAA 187 for their advice and guidance. And of course the many contributors to these forums and the people who take the time to document their builds. I spent many hours reading other builders' chronicles, and I can't imaging doing this with such a great resource. Smitty, Scott, Tony, Jim, Bill, Mike, and many others, thanks guys! You too, Dan.
Airspeed started going out at about 20 feet. I've since diagnosed a loose Safe Air connector as the cause and fixed it. Of course I had to remove the seat pans to get at it.
Without airspeed (the 430W ground speed was almost an adequate backup)
I didn't get my flight test card fully run, but I did climb to 3000 AGL and slow down a bit to see what handling was like. If there was a heavy wing I was too keyed up to notice it.
The landing took three tries. Kept coming in high and fast. On the last try, with the throttle all the way back I was running out of pavement and not slowing down so I chopped the mags. She still floated a while, but the landing was acceptable and I still had a 1000 feet left when down to a slow taxi.
The brakes are the classic sticky master cylinder problem. I finally proved that today. Now where was that other thread....
I had to be reminded to grin, since I wasn't following the checklist anymore.
Many thanks to my Wife for putting up with this for 3.7 years, my many friends who took time to help drive rivets, to Wayne Wagner who gave the project a home and has been there to help in these finishing steps, and to Deene Ogden and Seth Hancock of EAA 187 for their advice and guidance. And of course the many contributors to these forums and the people who take the time to document their builds. I spent many hours reading other builders' chronicles, and I can't imaging doing this with such a great resource. Smitty, Scott, Tony, Jim, Bill, Mike, and many others, thanks guys! You too, Dan.
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