FlightAware

www.flightaware.com - This is a pretty popular (and free) website where you can track airplane flights. It's usually delayed by 15mins or so and typically has only shown IFR flights. Tonight after I returned home from Moline, I had an email from guy here local who said he saw me on FA. Sure enough, my tracks up and back were there! You can see it here.

Coincidentally, I was at the airport tonight getting some stuff when I saw an RV practicing an engine out over the end of 17. On his rollout, I recogonized the paint scheme and the engine sound. It was Nate Larson in his Subie powered RV-9A. Nate also happens to be a supervisor at Kansas City Center. I mentioned my tracks on FA and he said that flight advisory flights would probably start showing up more.

Here is an interesting link that will allow you to see all flights of a certain type. You can type in "RV" and get all the RV flights. Tonight I found two RV-6's flying. http://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype

Gianna's first ride and the autopilot works!

A big strom blew through on Thursday evening, so I didn't get a chance to get up and go flying like I had hoped. This morning we got up and made it to the airport around 9am. The plane was still filthy from the dust at Oshkosh, so we washed it quick and then I headed over to K81 for gas and then off to MLI to pick up Gianna, our grand-daughter. Two hours from here to there gave me time to play with the auto-pilot. I tweaked the sensitivity settings and the torque settings a little and then it was doing its job darn near perfectly. Heading was dead on and altitude didn't vary by more then 10ft either way. Of course, this was in smooth air. All by myself, listening to Dave Matthew Band and letting the autopilot fly.

Once I arrived in MLI, took a break and then loaded Gianna in the plane. I didn't have time to rig up the car seat in the baggage area, so Sandi had to stay home so I could rig the car seat up front. This was her first airplane ride and we weren't sure how this would go. Fortunately, her parents had talked her up about the plane ride so she was ready to go. At first, she even was cool with the headset. Between the headset and the Wiggles DVD, she was pretty entertained for the first 45mins or so and then got restless and took off the headset. The airplane noise didn't bother her, so I didn't force it back on. About 30mins prior to landing, she fell asleep.

The trip home was much improved having the AP do the flying. Trying to keep track of her doin's and fly the plane at the same time would have been tough. The descent down into Ottawa got a big rough. The AP was doing an OK job. I might need to turn up the sensitivity some and maybe the torque.

Autopilot Install - Part IV

The post installation check is complete and the plane is ready to fly. The post install basically consists of powering up the unit and going through the settings pages (of which TT gives you little to no guidance). Then you engage the AP and tell it to turn you... and hope the aileron goes the right way. :-) It did... and same with altitude hold. So everything looks good. Tomorrow, Sandi and I are going to fly over to K81 to get some fuel and dinner and test the AP. On Friday, I'm headed to MLI, so I'll have a couple of hours x-country to see how well it performs.

I'm looking for input from anyone who has a TT AP in their RV-9 and what settings they are using.


PS - Next project is an APRS system.... all the rage with RV guys now.... stay tuned.

Autopilot install - Part III

3rd trip to the hangar this week to work on the AP install. I managed to finish the installation tonight. I remounted the pitch servo. I shortened the push rod tub by 1/2" to account for my mis-mounting of the bracket. After some tweaking of the length and playing with various spacers I was able to get it into position without risk of binding with anything. I bolted everything in place and safety wired the servo in place. Next I crimped pins on the wires and assembled the db-9 connector.

The essentially completes the physical installation of the autopilot. I did a continuity check on all of the wires to make sure I didn't have any pins crossed or any shorts and everything came out perfect. I'll head back out to the airport to do the post-installation check (on the ground) and then put all the covers back in place for a test flight.

Autopilot install - Part II

So after a long day in the hangar on Saturday, I spent some time on Monday poking around on the Internet looking at other TTAP installs on RV's. That is when I noticed that my install was slightly different than the other RV-9's I saw. Turns out, the drawings that TT sent with my AP were for the RV-7/10 (which I had noticed) but there are different drawings for the RV-9! I downloaded and printed the right drawings from TT's site. I also called TT to ask them about my pitch servo installation bracket. Zach said it should be fine to shorten the pushrod tube as long as there isn't any interference. I also asked him about how the washers are supposed to be used. See my post here. Told them they needed to update their drawings to reflect this information.

So back out to the airport I went after work. I disconnected and then reconnected the wing servo pushrod per the RV-9 drawings. :-) I also installed the pitot/static fittings and tubing to the new control head. The fitting locations are then ADI-II are in a different location than on the plain ADI, so it required new tubing.

Tonight I'll head back out and work on the pitch servo installation. Going to drag Sandi out with me to help double-check my wiring by doing continuity checks from each end of the wires.

Autopilot Installation begins...

The AP arrived on Saturday morning. Two servo's, control head and a box of hardware. Headed out to the airport early Sunday morning to get started. It took about 3 hours to get the wing servo installed. There are no installation instructions, only a few drawings. The drawings don't indicate what the bolt/washer setup is supposed to be, so I did what I could. I was also able to get the wiring at the servo completed.

Home for lunch and a siesta!

Back at the airport, I pulled off the baggage wall to start on the pitch servo. The bracket was installed several years ago when I built the fuselage, so it was just matter of bolting it on. Then I played with the servo push rod and it just didn't look right. It was too long and the servo arm was going over-center. Weird! The drawing called for the pushrod to be 5.75", which I had right. The bracket is supposed to be 2.8", so I checked.... it's 2.25 inches. UGH! I pulled the servo back off and put it aside while I figure out what to do. I can remove the bracket and shift it, would require drilling out 7 rivets. I'm going to call TT tomorrow and see if I can just shorten the pushrod arm instead as long as I don't have any binding or interference.

Next I started tackling all of the wiring at the control unit. I used a DB-25 connector with crimp-on pins instead of the solder-on that TT provides. A lot easier to deal with. All of the wires were run and marked, so it was just a matter of trimming to length, crimp on the pins and insert into the connector. I had to remove the wire going from the Garmin 496 to the data logger so I could feed the AP.

With the wires all done, I moved to installing the control head in the panel. The ADI Pilot II has two knobs on the face, so I had to create the cut-out for the left knob. I put to unit in place and screwed it in. Looks good! The afternoon accounted for another 3 hours or so.

Once I get the pitch servo situation figured out, I'll terminate the wires and I'll be ready to test the unit. I need to be ready to go by Friday as I'm headed up to pick up the grand-daughter in Moline, IL.

Prepping for IFR Ticket

It's about time I get my IFR ticket. It will help with insurance, make me a better pilot, give Sandi a little more comfort when flying close to clouds and allow us to get out and go places when layers of clouds keep us pinned down. My personal minimums will be quite high. I have no desire nor the intention of spending hours flying in the clouds. There are many flyable days that we could get somewhere but are stopped by a cloud deck at 1500 ft that is maybe 500ft thick and VFR on top. On long trips, flight planning is an issue... we can get there but can we get back?

The airplane is mostly ready for IFR work. I need a pitot/static check, transponder check. I need to install the GPS/NAV annunciator. I've ordered a TruTrack ADI Pilot II to replace my straight ADI. This will give me a 2-axis autopilot. AP is nearly a requirement when doing IFR in an RV.

Pilot readiness: I started on my written IFR about a year ago but didn't finish, so I've started studying again. I have the ASA DVD's/books along with several other IFR study books. I want to get it knocked out in the next month.

I have an instructor lined up. His name is Andy. He's a controller at Kansas City Center, he's building an RV-7 and even better, he's moving to Ottawa where we live! He can't get started until mid-September which will probably work out OK. Give me time to get the plane ready and get my written done or mostly done.

Oshkosh - Day 8 - August 2nd

On our way home today. Writing this from the in-laws place in Moline, IL. We got up this morning and just sort slowly got things packed up. Took our two boxes + our tent to the Fedex tent to ship back home. $63 Not bad, saved us a lot of room and lots of weight. We'll be heading out of here shortly for the last 2 hour leg home. Weather is gorgeous today!

Update:

We made it home... landed around 6:00pm in Ottawa. Weather was decent in Illinois...it was HOT and HAZY the closer we got to home. Northeast of KC, it was so hazy we couldn't see anything ahead of us about all we could see was down. There was some cloud buildup over KC and we weren't sure how far south it extended so we decided to drop down to get below it... bad idea of sorts. It was HOT, a bit bumpy, and just as hazy. Turns out the clouds cleared up after 20 miles but it was pointless to climb back up at that point. We quickly unloaded the car and headed home.