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TSwezey?

TSwezey said:
I will do a check again on it tomorrow or Saturday.
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Todd,
It may be something you are already doing...but a rather simple process to get accurate fuel data is to carefully fill the tanks sitting at a specific spot by the pumps (marks made with chalk can even be put on the ramp so that you can relocate exactly the same later). Do all taxi, climb, decent and landing on one tank and all stabilized cruise flight on the other. Return to the pumps right after the flight and refill to the exact same level on each tank.
 
Todd, you communist! I knew that was you (guys?) overhead 3J1 last Saturday. I don't know how high you were, but I could hear you clearly---that V8 makes a very distinctive sound. Unmistakeable. Kept hoping you'd land!

Congratulations on your progress. Unfortunately, my fuel pump has got to come off again. Lycomings aren't exactly ZERO maintenance either!

Regards,


Lee...
 
logansc said:
Todd, you communist! I knew that was you (guys?) overhead 3J1 last Saturday. I don't know how high you were, but I could hear you clearly---that V8 makes a very distinctive sound. Unmistakeable. Kept hoping you'd land!

Congratulations on your progress. Unfortunately, my fuel pump has got to come off again. Lycomings aren't exactly ZERO maintenance either!

Regards,


Lee...
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That was me! There was a bunch of traffic so I didn't come down low. I did two low approaches on Friday though. Somebody was in our hangar but nobody came outside. I can easily land in 1000' but i am just not comfortable with the width yet. Hopefully I'll be there soon.
 
TSwezey said:
I have about 22.6 hours in the air now and I am still alive. Nothing eventful has really happened. The plane is running great. Full throttle take-offs are a blast! This was just a long distance,speed calibration and fuel burn test. (snip)
Todd,
Sounds good. I did review your links and you were obviously putting it through the paces and having fun.
Will be interested to see what you think about the plane after you have everything sorted out and some time in it.
I have a ways to go before my kit is even ready for a firewall forward, so I will be watching with envy.
Regards,
Bill
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That looks like a good one also.

3.1 hours today. Too many clouds for fuel calibration. Lots of good landings. One or two great ones.

Yes Lee it was me again and I am still a chicken. Not ready to land there yet.
 
Todd: Not to worry, just take your time. Just so you know, there is a Cirrus owned by a low time pilot who is hangared there and who flies in and out regularly. Once you've landed there a couple of times, you'll wonder what the fuss was!

Lee...
 
N110TD is coming to Ridgeland this weekend maybe before. We are moving the plane up there at the end of July! I am ready for a hangar!
 
Todd: Emailed Dave some pix I took of his visit Saturday and yours Sunday. Man! That thing hauls out of there! You were off in no more than half to two-thirds the distance our local Cirrus uses. You were moving so fast, I didn't do a very good job with the little Lumix I was using. It's a great little camera but it doesn't have a viewfinder, so it's hard to pan accurately.

Anyway, it looks, sounds, and flies NICE!


Lee...
 
Osh

I made it up to Osh on Thursday. I was the last plane in! I hit Ripon and Fisk at 184 knots. so much for the NOTAM! I am at the middle of row 318. The engine ran great over the 7.5 hour journey from Savannah to Atlanta and then up to Osh. The only problem I had was burning up a brake seal while taken the five mile journey from the runway to the camping ground.
 
Todd: Lots of us "followed" you on Flight Aware yesterday, but apparently you canceled IFR in Kentucky somewhere and the program lost you. I'll be interested hear what that 360 in Tennessee was all about! Jim called me this morning and said you made it in.

CONGRATULATIONS! Hope you are having a great time! Call me tomorrow on my cell if you get a chance. Got a message for you...

Regards,

Lee...
 
logansc said:
Todd: Lots of us "followed" you on Flight Aware yesterday, but apparently you canceled IFR in Kentucky somewhere and the program lost you. I'll be interested hear what that 360 in Tennessee was all about! Jim called me this morning and said you made it in.

CONGRATULATIONS! Hope you are having a great time! Call me tomorrow on my cell if you get a chance. Got a message for you...

Regards,

Lee...
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I wasn't IFR but on flight following. I did the 360 because this cloud was just a little too tall to get over and I was sick of constantly heading east to get in front of the buildups so I circled down and went under them. I really only hit some light precip the whole way up. A lot of vectoring from ATC. Thanks for the tie downs. My cell phone battery is dead and like a dummy I forgot the charger. You should have seen the Airbus 380 take-off! Talk about amazing slow flight capabilities.
 
TSwezey said:
It was really muddy on the "taxi way" off of 27. It was a lot of work keeping it from sliding all over the place.
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My explanation sounds better. You are too honest!

You must have some FF/TAS numbers by now, no more excuses. Here we DO expect total honesty.;):)
 
Todd: Since your phone is inop, the message is that your DAR wants one of those nice, heavy cotton Oshkosh T-shirts, XXL (hint, hint..)!

Have fun answering all the questions you must be getting!


Lee...
 
I made it back this evening without any non-weather problems. I was held up in the mountains(hills) of Georgia in Blairsville for four hours. Great airport to be held up at. Other than that the trip home went well. I flew down to Kentucky with another RV-10 and discovered that 2 blade pros do much better tham 3 blade props at high speeds. We did have a 203 knot ground speed passing Chicago. I did burn a lot of fuel. My guess is 15gph. I was never able to get a full fuel burn rate because of different altitudes and deviations for weather. I was set-up for it until I hit the wall of clouds in Blairsville, GA.
 
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Good to hear you made it back. I'm heading out to have a beer or two with the guys from the other -10 you mentioned :) They got back around Noon or so.. saw them at the airport earlier today..
 
Radomir said:
Good to hear you made it back. I'm heading out to have a beer or two with the guys from the other -10 you mentioned :) They got back around Noon or so.. saw them at the airport earlier today..
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Thane has a really nice -10! We had a fun journey!
 
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N110TD turns One Today!

No crashes, no fires, no emergency landings, no engine outs, no PSRU failures, no prop failures. We did have our initial electrical problem that did do a number on the engine. 93 flying hours on the Hobbs. The problems we have: leaky tanks, BMA EFIS/One and nose wheel shimmy. We did have a small crack develop in the flex plate between the engine and the PSRU because someone, me, did not fully torque it in place during a swap out.

N110TD has been in the following states Georgia, SC, NC, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and of course Wisconsin.

Basically the first year has been proof on concept. We have larger than required air intakes for the cowl and we have kept the EGT's down to 1350. Fuel burn at cruise is about 13 to 15GPH. I think as we work on reducing cooling drag this will improve significantly. Since most of trips have been less than 1.5 hours I usually plan for 17 GPH just to be sure. The good news is our 17 GPH is at about $2.73 a gallon.

For those you with or building a Chevy powered RV-10 you will discover taking off is a blast. I doubt there is Lyco powered RV-10 that can accelerate and climb like a Chevy powered one.

To those who follow the Matronics RV-10 board: The write up Thane did about our flight departing Oshkosh was 100% correct except for the take-off part. I had an extra 150 lbs of dead weight in the plane besides all our camping stuff. I was nowhere near full throttle on take-off. I probably was just a little past half throttle. But everything else is true for a comparison.

Many will say that the Lyco blows the LS2 away for fuel consumption. They are correct. But we have yet to really work on the system.
Lycoming 10,000,000 hours or more of engine running time.
LS2 100 hours maybe?
Lycoming in an RV-10 10,000+ hours
LS2 in an RV-10 93.1 hours.

So for a plane system with under 100 hours on it flying it is probably only 20 to 30% behind in efficiency and easily ahead in cost per hour to run and maintain. Yes, I know it is not as safe. But with time I believe a good safety record will be established.
 
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Great news Todd, for so few hours these acheivements are remarkable. Let's see what if any issues the next 500hours throws up. Fuel cost wise your basically the same as the Lyc will run on the same fuel. Your savings (if reliabilty remains as is currently going) come from low upfront and future rebuild costs.

Great job

Frank
 
frankh said:
Great news Todd, for so few hours these acheivements are remarkable. Let's see what if any issues the next 500hours throws up. Fuel cost wise your basically the same as the Lyc will run on the same fuel. Your savings (if reliabilty remains as is currently going) come from low upfront and future rebuild costs.

Great job

Frank
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Frank I don't think anybody is running auto fuel in their -10's yet. I know you are but the IO-540 guys haven't followed suit yet.
 
Todd, It's been 4 or 5 months since you gave an update on the -10. Can you give any info on how the V8 package is performing?
1) How many hrs do you have on it now?
2) Performance: Rate of climb, cruise speed (rpm, MP, GPH, etc)
3) How's the Vesta PSRU holding up? Any problem to overcome?
4) Any cooling issues? How about on hot days?
5) Any different issues arising from flying behind a V8 vs. Lyco ?
 
I guess I have been posting tidbits here and there but not here I guess.

We have 145 flying hours on it now. Two Saturdays ago I flew it over 1200 NM in one day.

Rate of climb can go as high as 1700-1800 fpm at about 110 knots. I usually cruise at 165 burning about 15 gals at about 2400 rpm (prop speed) and manifold pressure at 22-23. When I was doing a lot of my flight testing for speed and economy I was seeing about 170 at 11-12 gals an hour but that was at a DA of about 13,000' and lightly loaded.

We did have a bearing spin in the PSRU but the PSRU kept working fine but it did get hot. Changed the front bearing to a roller bearing. The PSRU is really a nice simple design that hasn't let us down running wise yet.

No cooling issues. But now we have to work on cutting down drag and will decrease the amount of air over the radiators.

As the differences between the Lyco and the V-8. I think we have a much better rate of climb but due to too much cooling drag the Lyco's are faster and more fuel efficient. We started out conservative with the cooling and eventually we will work on cutting the drag down in the cowl area. The biggest problem I have had is the complete lack of desire to take the plane out of service to work on any modifications. I enjoy flying it and love filling up for $2.75-$3 a gallon. I have to find all the auto fuel airports though to enjoy the fuel cost savings. And no I am not unhappy one bit with my engine choice.
 
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I took N110TD on it's longest single day journey yesterday. John, a fellow flier, had to leave his plane a Cirrus in Atlantic City last week due to a cracked exhaust. He needed a ride from Fayetteville, NC up to AC. I figured it would be an exciting venture. And NEVER EVER miss an opportunity to take your friend in your experimental airplane with an auto engine in it to pick up his certified plane with a certified engine that broke down. Since I was making this voyage in an empty plane I went on the PilotsNPaws website and I found six beagle puppies that needed to be moved from Charleston to Camden, NJ. Usually these flights are handle by two or three different pilots but it is much easier on the dogs if they don't have to switch planes. Plan was all set to pick the pups up in Charleston go to Fayetteville and then on to NJ. On Thursday I got an urgent request to move a hound from Savannah to Suffolk, VA. How could I say no when I was making this exact flight on Saturday? They didn't tell me it was a LARGE hound but I dealt with it. He is over 100 lbs.

Loaded the hound Saturday morning and departed Savannah at 8:50 am and arrived at Walterboro, SC at 9:20. Loaded up the six puppies and we were off to Fayetteville. Departed Fayetteville at 11:45 for Suffolk, Va. Only about an hour flight. Suffolk, Va has cheap gas prices and Mogas!!!!!! Filled up for $2.90 a gallon. The new hound owners went to the wrong airport and we were in Suffolk for an hour and twenty minutes blowing what ever schedule I had. We didn't get out of Suffolk until 2:12 pm for the 1:40 flight to Camden, NJ. I don't know if any of you have ever flown into Camden, NJ but it is very interesting to land there with a 10 to 15 knot pure crosswind. There are houses not 150' from the Runway! The pups were unloaded and we were off to Atlantic City a little after 4pm. I think it was about a fifteen minute flight from Camden to AC. Successfully almost set my wheel pants on fire from riding the right brake to fight the crosswinds on our long journey to the FBO to pick up John's plane.
We took off as a flight of two out of Atlantic City. No I wouldn't call it formation because we were far apart. I took the lead out of AC. I climbed quickly out and John caught up to me about 5-10 miles south of AC. He took the lead all the way back to Suffolk, VA except for a few moments when he took some pictures of my plane. It is a lot of fun flying two planes together. I kept about a half mile off his right wing. The Chesapeake Bay is an incredibly beautiful area to fly over. We were over the bay for a good time. We arrived at Suffolk, filled up and immediately headed south from there at about 7:15. We both took off from different runways at the same time. We were each going our separate ways from Suffolk but our flight paths were extremely close. I climbed to 8,500 while he stayed at 6,500. It was a beautiful evening as the sun set as we made our way south. John only had an hour flight while mine was 2:45. I hand flew the whole way and until the last two hours where I let Otto take over. I think Otto had too many Margaritas because he was all over place. I decided to let him fly anyway since there wasn't a soul in the air. I mean nobody! I several conversations with controllers from Fayetteville on down. Arrive back in Savannah a little before 10. Not bad 1200+ NM and 7 dogs dropped off in thirteen hours and with stops at six different airports in five different states!
 
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TSwezey said:
As the differences between the Lyco and the V-8. I think we have a much better rate of climb but due to too much cooling drag the Lyco's are faster and more fuel efficient.
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Only with the intent of providing valid comparison data...when flying a 10 with a 260 HP Lyc., it is common for me to get between 1400 and 1500 FPM climb near gross weight and to easily hit 2000 FPM with just two people and full fuel (These figures are at near sea level altitudes).
Economy cruise is about 185 MPH at 11.5 GPH.
 
What Scott said..

.....easy 1500 FPM at my usual cruise-climb of 140 MPH...2000 FPM no problem. Ya gotta also remember, we're around 1600 lbs empty:)

Best,
 
That's why I put "think" in there. My only comparisoon was against a Cirrus. Without a side by side I guess we won't know. I was climbing at about 1700 FPM up to 6,500. Pierre you coming to Ridgeland Saturday?
 
TSwezey said:
I don't know if any of you have ever flown into Camden, NJ but it is very interesting to land there with a 10 to 15 knot pure crosswind. There are houses not 150' from the Runway!
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Which airport did you fly into in Camden? 19N?
 
Todd,

Surprising results...I really liked your cowl setup, and thought the side exit might have benefits....I know the thorp used them with success.

It sounds like you have excess cooling capacity to play with though. Glad to hear it is running well for you.
 
Thanks John. I have to get that drag down. Well I don't have too but if I want to save some dinero I do. The saver for me is autogas is still under $3 a gallon.
 
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