Minneapolis back to KC

Sunday morning dawned to a beautiful day. It was going to be a good day to give Pete a ride. Sandi called me early to ask if I had looked at the weather in KC, which I hadn't. When we left, it was supposed to be nice all weekend. She had been looking online and seeing a forecast for thunderstorms all afternoon. I hope on the computer and confirmed what she was seeing. So a change of plans was made. I'd give Pete a ride and then fly up to Osceola, WI to pick her up at the local airport which was closer to where she was than where I was staying. Forecast was calling for t-storm activity startin around 3-4ish.

I met Pete at Doug & Paul's hangar around 8:30. We chatted a bit while I put the cowl back on after blocking off the oil cooler again. (I have to come up with a valve to control air flow to the oil cooler.) Pulled the plane out and went for a quick flight. Pete was very excited about the handling of the RV-9A. He's been flying an RV-7 with someone and commented that it was "twitchy". We did som gentle turns and I did a couple of steep turns topped off with a couple of stalls. You can't help but laugh when the RV-9A stalls.... it just kinda stutters and the nose drops. Such a non-event. We went back to Lake Elmo and did a couple of landings.. so-so on my part. I'm finding that landing the airplane with passengers and full fuel needs a little practice.

Said farewell to Pete and then boogied up to Osceola to get Sandi. Loaded the plane up and just as we were getting ready to leave and RV-3 taxied up! First real RV-3 I'd ever seen... looks like a lot of fun. That is an airplane that you strap on for sure!



We departed OEO and climbed to 8,500 ft and picked up flight following all the way back. The thunderstorms apparently never materialized and we arrived back in Ottawa 2:45 minutes later. We had a ground speed of 163kts most of the way. The trip home sure seemed quicker than the trip up.

Total flight time: 9.3 hours
Amount of fun had: Priceless

Robyn, Donna and Sandi

RV-4 Ride, Alex Peterson, Maintenance

The plan was to go on a breakfast run this morning over to Eau Claire, WI with a couple of other RV'rs but the rain yesterday left us with dense, heavey fog this morning. Pete Howell, fellow RV9 builder, made arrangements for me to hangar with Doug (RV-4) and Paul (RV-7A Under Construction). Doug called to let me know the breakfast flight was scrubbed but if I wanted to go with him, he was headed over to Anoka County to visit Alex Peterson (RV-6A)around 9:30. Doug and Alex have decided to replace their existing ignition systems with Lightspeed systems. Alex is replacing a set of Lasar mags that have failed him 3 times and Doug is replacing traditional magnetos. It was kinda nice to meet Alex as I knew of him from his website and various online groups. I've always thought his simple paint scheme was nice. We spent an hour or so with Alex, helped him pull off this prop and generally discussed the installation of the new Lightspeed system.



Back in the RV-4 to Lake Elmo. As soon as we taxied up to Doug's hangar, I got wrangled into helping the guy next door with his Cessna 305 (Birdog?). He needed a 2nd set of eyes and hands. Doug proceeded to pull his cowl off and drain the oil and remove his mags.

I took the opportunity to work on my plane a bit as well. On the way up, I was about a whole ball out of center. I figured it was the gear leg fairings since it flew straight until I put those on. I had done some digging before I left and learned that you twist the fairings in the direction you want he nose to go. Since I had to use a lot of right rudder to get the ball centered, I tweaked them to the right some. Then I noticed my nosegear strut fairing had compe loose from it's hose clamp, so I fixed that. My right brake pedal seemed to be sticking and holding the brake a little bit, so I backed off the nut one slot. On a roll, I started to think about dealing with the heavy right wing I have. I adjust the right aileron push tube 1/2 turn out to push the aileron down a little. With that, I decided to go up flying for a bit. After 40 minutes or so of getting pounded with turbulence I decided to head over to Anoka County where I saw a sign for $3.30/gal gas! That's a great price right now. We paid $3.23 before we left and most places are $3.80ish now. Seems like my tweaking of the gear legs fairings and the aileron have corrected most of the rig issues. From what I can tell the ball is centered now.. at least at 2300rpm and the right wing isn't so heavy now. We'll see how it works on the way home.

I'm meeting Pete Howell at the aiport Sunday morning to give him his first ride in an RV-9A. Pete should be flying this summer.

Kansas City to Minneapolis

Our 2nd long cross county trip and longest so far. We planned to launch out of KC for MSP around noon but the weather in the MSP area wasn't looking real good. I got home from work around 1:00 and we checked weather again. Sandi was really looking forward to the trip but didn't want to go if we couldn't make it all the way. We finally made the decision to head on up and see how the weather panned out. Worst case we'd have to put down somewhere south of MSP and spend the night. Weather was scheduled to improve on Saturday morning.

I think we got off thd ground around 2:30. Mostly full tanks, two people and 75lbs of baggage filling up the rear. Climb-out was a bit anemic compared to solo climb-outs. We had some mild turbulence up to about 8,000 ft and leveled off at 9,500 and picked up flight following. A couple hundred miles south of MSP we had to descend down to 5500 to get under a cloud deck. Didn't want to risk getting on top and then not finding a hole to come down through. Mild turbulence picked up but Sandi was getting used to it.



We had to cancel our flight following not too long after since they couldn't pick us up on radar. About 75 miles out we ran into a light mist. Visibility was still good. Looking up ahead all we could see was a wall of rain. I skirted around it a bit trying to see if there might be a way through but we decided to put down somewhere and see if it would blow over. We picked the nearest airport and setup to land but a combination of the gusty winds and a heavy plane left me poorly setup to touch-down so I opted for a go-around. Probably worked out OK as the place look deserted. We picked another airport further south that turned out to be a great place to set down.



Austin Municpal Airport in Austin, MN. A long, brand-new 5,800ft runway with a brand spanking new FBO building. VERY nice. Showers in the bathrooms, pilot lounge, the works. Bruce tossed us the keys to the courtesty car and gave us directions to Jerry's Other Place and gave us the door codes to get back in. We ran into town and grabbed some dinner, took a quick tour of the downtown area. Really a nice town. Back at the airport, the radar was showing a line of rain between us and where we wanted to be. There was a narrow band that I thought we might be able to get through before the heavy stuff passed by. Told Sandi we might as well pop up and see... worst case we come back to Austin and spend the night.





Turned out to be a good decision. We were able to get through (underneath) to Lake Elmo Airport (21D) with only a little misting action. Unfortuantely it was too late to get the plane in a hangar that night. We met up with Mike and he ran Sandi out to her scrapbooking retreat and I headed back with Mike to his place for the night.

So we've arrived in Minneapolis. It was about a 3 hour trip or so. We averaged 133kts ground speed coming up at 9500 and pickedup 10 more knots when we got down lower. All in all a great trip up.

Some local flying...

Friday night after work, I went bombing around.. buzzed my mom's house and my Aunt Linda's place. Farmers are still burning fields around here making for very hazy flying.

I'm working with Will James on a new induction system connection to the carb, so I pulled off the cowl and took some measurements/pictures. I noticed a small oil drip at the oil screen fitting, so I tightened that up. I also fixed a small seepage at the fuel intake on the carb.

Saturday morning was nice out, Sandi was at her family's, so I headed to the airport and took our FBO Manager Tony LeMaster out for a spin. Tony has flown just about every airplane.. lots of Ford Trimotor time and all sorts of other planes. He really got a kick out of the RV... said he'd never flown a plane so responsive! We were flying over the city and he had a hard time keeping up with the plane because it was so fast. Throttled back to 2000rpm so head could show me some sites.

Was supposed to give some family members some rides but the wind was supposed to be picking up, so didn't fly on Sunday.

OWI-LXT-TOP-OWI

Sandi and I made an early morning flight up to KLXT where EAA 91 was hosting a breakfast and Young Eagles event. It was pretty darn chilly out. After some food and some socializing we headed west to Topeka (KTOP) where we met up with my mom and spent the day with her. Back at the airport and a quick flight home... 1.8 hours on the hobbs.

Total Time: 48.5 hrs.

Nosewheel pant installation w/ test flight

I finished install the nosewheel pant. With the new brackets to mount the wheel pant, it didn't take much time at all. The new pant also makes it much easier to take the wheel pant off.

A small rain storm had just passed and it was nice and clear out, so a quick call to Sandi and we made a .7 hour flight around the patch.

Quick test flight

On our trip to Sikeston this past weekend, KC Center couldn't pick up our transponder. It was working before. On our way back, I kept it tuned to the various center frequencies and heard them make a traffic call to another pilot that approximated our position and height, so it must have been working. So after work on Tuesday, I made a quick flight up the 5500ft and called KC Center to see if they could pick me up and sure enough, they got me. I'm hoping this doesn't become a gremlin.

I guess I should also update everyone on my induction system issues. Since Flight #1 I've had goofy mixture problems and what seemed to be fuel leaking from the carb. My static and WOT RPM's weren't really what they should have been either. I got a call from Dave down in Texas who also has an RV-9A with a SJ cowl/induction but he has an O-360 in his bird. After many phone calls and emails with some troubleshooting, we have discovered that the carb air box that Will James delivers with his cowl kit is very inefficient and in MY case is causing turbulence in the box. Enough so that it actually sucks fuel OUT of the carb, as evidenced with fuel stains in the throat of the carb and in the air box. My solution to the problem has been to replace the airbox that mounts to the bottom of the carb and replace it with a 3" flange to which I attached a 3" SCAT tube that connects to the filtered air box. This setup has eliminated my mixture problems, increased my static RPM by 100rpm getting me up to 2210rpm static. My WOT throttle RPM is now 2650, as before I could only get 2550 with the old air box. I could get 2610 with no airbox at all.



Suffice it to say that I am very pleased that the problem has been indentified and a solution is in place. Will is going to revamp his airbox and replace it with a 90-degree elbow of some sort, as this appears to be the best method of feeding air into the carb. I'll probably leave my setup as is for now. It sucked to go fly and always be questioning the engine.... now I am MUCH more confident/comfortable when I go flying.

Also, my elevator counter-balance arms are sticking up about 1/2"-3/4" during cruise flight. I think most builders leave it as is but it kind bugs me. So I made up a .016" shim and stuck under the front HS spar. That took out about 1/2 of what was sticking up. I'll put one more small piece under there to see if I can get the rest of it out. There is a posible side effect of running out of nose up trim though.

Sandi's maiden flight is a long x-country (OWI-SIK)

Saturday dawned to beautiful skies and promised to be a great day. We had planned a cross-country flight to Sikeston, MO which was 288nm. Sikeston is home of Lamberts Cafe, Home of the Throwed Rolls.

I had just changed the oil and put some shims underneath the HS front spar, so I went up for a quick test flight to make sure all was well before heading out with Sandi. Everything checked out OK, so off we went.

It was a smooth flight over the Ozark mountains. At 6,500ft we caught a great tailwind with ground speeds of 175kts. It took right at 2 hours to get there. An approach into Sikeston with a couple of 360's to loose some altitude and a nice landing. As we were walking up to the terminal building, the lineman said he had already called Lamberts to come and get us. How did he know we wanted to go to Lamberts?? We didn't say anything on the radio... telepathic I guess. 5 minutes later, Chris showed up in the minivan and took us over. It's only 1.5 miles down the road. Pilots get escorted in the back door and get seated ahead of everyone. Since it was early, seating wasn't an issue.

Lambert's is a place you definatly need to visit. It's a southern home-cooking kind of place that is all-you-can eat. It's isn't a buffet.. you just ask for more if you want it. In addition to AYCE, they walk around with bowls of fixin's like fried okra, macaroni-n-tomatoes, fried potatoes, black-eyed peas at no cost. At what makes them famous is their freshly baked rolls that they THROW to you from across the room. You just stick your hand up and they toss them to you. Cost for Sandi an I... $20! She had the chicken wings and I had sausage and kraut.

When you are done eating, just let me know you need a ride back to the airport. Chris was kind enough to drop us off in downtown Sikeston for a little sight seein'. Turns out there really wasn't much to see. We stopped at the Depot Museum and saw some local high school art and they had some museum stuff for the local cotton industry.

We walked back to the airport a couple of miles to work off the lunch and headed back home. The flight home was a bit bumpy.... Sandi was struggling a bit to stay calm. She hasn't flown in awhile so it will take her a couple of flights to get used to turbulence. I tried several altitudes looking for calm air but couldn't find any. As we got closer to home the clouds were building to our south and looked like they might encroach on our flight back. A quick call to FSS for a weather report told us that we would probably be OK, the storm was to our south and dissipating. We did pass by a couple of cloud banks. A stop at Paola (K81) with a direct cross-wind landing for some fuel ($2.93) and then a quick flight home to put the bird away.

5.1 hours on the hobbs and a great day of flying! Sandi had a great time (besides the turbulence). We will definatly be back to Sikeston for some lunch. Sandi also wants to check out the Outlet Malls in town that we didn't get to.