On to the story of first flight.  And sorry for posting this a day late, I've been busy as you will soon read.  Weeks prior to the event I spoke with Dan and Dave about flying with me on the first flight, and both were eager to help, which is a very comforting thing.  First flight can scare the pants off of you, and I probably had the same feelings as anybody else who has done this, nervous but anxious to do it.  I felt that having a chase plane was good preventive medicine.  Dan flew close chase and Dave flew as camera ship.  My dad flew with Dan and David flew with Dave. 

Saturday morning of 8/13/05 broke like most days lately at CNO, overcast with a marine layer at 1400 feet.  A bit low since I planned on orbiting the field at between 2000 and 2500 feet.  We arrived at 7:00 AM.  We waited and waited.  More and more people showed up at the hanger.  About 11:30 AM the skies were blue; time to go.  Said my farewells and hopped into the plane.   Dan and Dave were right behind me on the taxi to 26L.  Did a quick run-up and mag check and took the active, so far so good.  The plan was to get airborne and go to channel 3 after getting to altitude.  David had all channels wired for sound and the cameras were running, and there were a *lot* of cameras.  It was a bit intimidating.  I pushed the throttle in and in short time we were airborne.  The plane did nothing strange.  It flew perfectly.  No heavy wing.  This was also the first time I flew an EFIS panel.  It took all of about 1 second to look and detect airspeed, altitude and oil pressure.  Flying behind a glass panel is incredible.   I'm very happy I made that decision.

At about 400 feet, focused on the essential flight parameters, I began to notice that the plane was a little anemic.  It flew great but I just wasn't feeling and seeing the proper power output.  At that time I started to notice a considerable shake coming from either the prop or engine.  I kept flying the plane and tried to sort out what was happening.  My plan on this flight was to not touch the mixture or prop except to bring the rpm's from 2700 to 2600.  But I wasn't even seeing 2600.  In fact, I don't even remember what I saw as far as rpm.  I think that happens to a lot of people on their first flight.  You concentrate on several important numbers and sort of glaze over the rest.  Hey, I'm no test pilot :) 

Got to 2000 feet and airspeed maxed out at 121 kts, not good, and the shake/shimmy was still there.  By the time I got to the runway threshold on downwind I made a decision to put her back down.  I never left the tower frequency and did not hear what Dan was saying about the condition of the airplane.  So I requested an extended downwind, base and final.  I couldn't hear the tower either.  Something happened with my old headset, the mic stuck perhaps.  I had bigger fish to fry.  I started to reduce power and the engine started to backfire something fierce.  Not an occasional backfire but a continuous stream of backfires.  And you notice it right away with the exhausts directly under you butt.  I was high but managed to get her back onto the runway with what looks like a greaser on film.  In fact, it was a greaser :)

So that's over and I'm taxing back and there's a whole lot of people standing there doing the wave thing and a bunch of thumbs up and hell, I had the biggest smile on my face.  I was happy the plane flew perfectly, but a bit concerned about the engine.  Overall, it was a wonderful experience, albeit very short.  Thanks for the wave guys, it looked very very nice from my vantage point.  When everyone got back to the hanger Dave ceremoniously brought out the bottle of Bubbly which totally made my day.

Early that morning we all had breakfast at Flo's.  During breakfast the subject of call-signs came up.  Dave mentioned that many people get theirs from the experience of first flight.  Well I wasn't going to make fool of myself on first flight, or so I thought.  After the first flight we all broke for lunch at Flo's.  It was there that I started to think about the first flight in detail.  I asked Dan how many times I accidentally told tower that "Cessna 447RV was blah blah".  He said at least 2-3 times.   So now you know.  It's pretty fitting.  Sometimes your mind just sticks to old habits.  I deserve it.

If you are looking for the video, it will be here in a few days.  It's going to take some time to condense it to a manageable form.

:)  <- RV grin, no pictures were taken of me post flight with a smile a mile wide.  But it's still there, and it's NOT going away.

Keep pounding those rivets!

After spending a considerable amount of time dissecting the problem it boiled down to the fuel injectors.  We pulled the #4 injector but it was clean.  I couldn't remember if the #4 or #1 was first on my EFIS, which was showing an abnormally high EGT with power applied.  Later I pulled the #1 injector.  As I pulled it out I said "There better be something in this damn thing".  And there it was, a black plastic bugger completely clogging the injector.  Cleaned it out and did a full static power run-up.  What an incredible difference!  It ran perfectly.  I can't wait for flight #2!

Phew, I'm still pumped.  Second flight probably won't be until next weekend.  I had a little chaffing between the cowl and the custom filtered air box I built.  I cut that portion out and laid some more BID on it.  I didn't want to ingest any fiberglass and couldn't fly with it out of course.  I may sneak out during the week too.  I'm really anxious to get back into the air.  Now that I know that the airframe is solid and the motor runs very well, it should be a fantastic second flight.

First Flight Video

So I did a thorough checkout and walk around, pulled the plane out into the heat of the burning sun, strapped myself in and began to sweat.  Dave was waiting for me in his 8 at the end of my hanger row.  Dave was kind to fly chase again.  This time, I was a bit more focused.  I had fixed all the little issues which had cropped up on the first flight; clogged #1 fuel injector, safety wired the oil filler extension (which I had stupidly removed after first flight), re-worked FAB, found the erroneous MP reading issue (it was an EFIS setting) and drained all the oil and refilled the sump per the ECI recommended procedure to get the dipstick markings.  Like a complete moron, I had filled the sump the first time and had not made any markings on the dipstick.  Now tell me, how in the hell was I supposed to find out how much oil I was burning without any markings?  Thanks Dan for "enlightening" me.  Keep on doing that.  Next time I do something stupid just slap me upside the head and bitch away.  You can't take flying for granted during Phase 1.  Anything can happen.

Anyway, we taxied out, got into position on 26L and I started easing the throttle in.  Oh yeah, what a huge difference.  I got full RPM and she was screaming down the runway.  This was such a noticeable difference that I got to 2000' in very short order, circling the field.  On about the third circuit I noticed that oil temps were climbing and had hit 230.  I decided that instead of pushing it I would circle to land.  It's not uncommon for a new engine to develop high oil temps, but I didn't want to stretch it.  My plan is to replace Van's oil cooler with the Stewart Warner model 8406R.  Dan has a great write up about this replacement oil cooler here.  Do yourself a favor, if you plan to fly in hot conditions, get one and leave Vans oil cooler out of your firewall forward kit.

Another greaser landing and I'm spent.  We got back to the hanger and now it was time for the Bubbly to be opened.  I'll call this the first successful flight.  No issues except the oil temp.  David flew chase with Dave and got some great air-to-air shots.

And finally, the Vans smile!

The way the current oil cooler is:

The SW is a beefly little mother with what appears to be more than twice the number of little aluminum slots in it.

Pulled the old cooler and removed the AN fittings being careful not to slop oil all over my nice clean installation.  One little trick to keeping the oil from running out of the hoses is to cut two fingers off of a rubber glove and slip it over the end.  He's a shot of what I mean, only the fingerettes are over the AN fittings so nothing gets inside.

Old cooler, notice that the "fins" extend outward.  These slide into the backing plate on the baffling.  On the new cooler it's not like that.  It turns out that it fits just fine like that.

The holes pretty much lined up but I had to do a little filing on the inside of the openings for the bolts on the cooler.  I just used a little round file.

One thing I did notice was that the braided oil line was chafing a bit on the oil vent tube.  Solved that by moving the tube a bit and re-clamping.  Just to make sure I placed a strip of silicone baffling material on the tube.

After this I met up with Dan over at his hanger.  Paul and Victoria Rosales and Mike James and his son flew in and we all went over to Flo's for lunch.  Thanks for lunch Paul!

Today I also received my sniffle valve, or rather part # 75444 from Sacramento Sky Ranch.  I'll install it this weekend before flying.

Well, trying to make good use of the downtime, I decided to head for Cabo for some much needed R&R and Fishing.  Here's some shots.  Flying isn't everything, especially when you *Cannot* fly.

Here's the place where we usually stay, Las Olas condos in San Jose Del Cabo.  Yep, that's the ocean right out front, just behind the pool and Jacuzzi.  Too bad the place was overrun with surfers.  They don't fish, well maybe that's good for us.

First day of fishing was very good.  Biggest YFT was about 65#, not bad.  The other guy is my boss Clay, he's the Sr. VP of IT.  Hope he doesn't read this :)  I will say that I was sore as hell the next day, big time.  We decided not to bring our "big guns" down there since the latest fishing report was pretty bleak.  But here's a tip for those of you going to Cabo to go fishing; "you never know".  Keep that in mind.  First day of fishing was excellent, second day (being so sore) I was happy that it was a down day.  Third and forth days were spent in the cool comfort of the condo, sucking down maggies and watching the horrible news from LA.  What a terrible tragedy.

UPDATE ! UPDATE ! UPDATE !  Clay did indeed read this page.  His last statement to me was "I may be older than you, but at least I still have a job!".  I hereby take back any amusing (to me) adjectives I used to describe him.  Clay, can I have my job back?

Tuna, vacuum packed and getting cold, about 70# of flesh.  We vacuum pack it ourselves.  We only kept a few of the tuna, the choices ones, and give the rest to the skipper.

Eating and drinking when not fishing.  The only thing this place needs is a maid.  See if you can count the number of liquor bottles.  If you guess right, you get to come along on the next trip.  Better start stocking up now.

What your boss does when you fart.  Hey, you combine a certain abundance of booze and really good chow, farts you get.  He claims his don't stink.  Yeah, right.

Flew around to confirm that it's all working perfectly. Yep.  Flew for 1.5 hours today.  All the numbers are looking very good so far.  Have a total of 4.1 hours on the plane.

Got my bottle of Weed today.  YUUMMMMMYYYYY.  Bought two, just in case of emergency.  You know; "In case of emergency, break glass".

After landing I decided to fill the gap on the front baffle.  I hadn't done this because I had been told it wasn't necessary.  But I can stick my fingers in that gap.  It must be the cause of the high cht's.  My baffles are rubbing perfectly around the top so I know that's fine.

So I got my trusty tube of high temp RTV and went to town.  I can actually say that there are NO leaks at this point.  I shut the lights off in the hanger and with a flashlight tried to detect any areas where light is leaking and now there are none.  It may look like crap, but it's gonna work!

One thing I wish I would have done on the first flight and every other flight after that was to record the flight.  This is perhaps one of the greatest features of the GRT EFIS; plug in your USB stick and record the entire flight. 

I finally did that on this flight.  I created a page on this site where I'll deposit my flights so you can plug it into your GRT EFIS and fly with me virtually.  If you are still building and have the units on your bench this is very handy to see just how the unit performs.  One thing you'll notice about this flight is the magnetometer is not yet calibrated and is about 15 degrees off.  I'll fix that before the next flight.  Download the Flight here.

Ok, take it in stride.  Got saddled up and decided at least to get some gas.  During my preflight (controls tests) I noticed that the stick had a significant amount of resistance in aileron control.  Since I have to remove the AP and pitch servo and send them in for an upgrade, I'll remove the aileron servo and see what's up with it.  As soon as I removed the cover plate I could smell burnt electronics.  I'll send it back with the rest tomorrow, overnight shipping.  I really need to get this stuff back by Friday so I can fly this weekend, but I'm sure something will come up keeping me from flying, why break the status quo?

One thing I did notice is that the pitch servo looks like the motor is shock mounted on rubber feet internal to the box.  The motor is able to move about in it's mounting box.  I'll have to check with them on Monday to make sure this is the way it's supposed to be.  I put both servos back into their places and remounted the head unit and re-installed the baggage bulkheads.

The wx was not up to my test flight minimums to fly today with fog and extreme haze, bummer.

Flew for an additional 2.5 hrs today and now the hobs meter is almost at the halfway mark.  I'm finally building quite a bit of confidence as well.  Today's tests included engaging the AP at various bank and pitch attitudes.  I wanted to know if I can safely engage the AP in an unusual attitude and see what it does.  It's pretty smooth and levels both the wings and nose and continues on the current heading or the GPSS heading depending upon what's selected.

Got up to 10K today and just enjoyed the view.  Mike Holland met up with me and we did a quick speed run.  His RV-9 is pretty damn quick!  Course I don't have any wheel pants either.  I'm not going to put the fairings and wheel pants on until I get her back to TOA.  It's just too far to work and be productive.  That also means that I will have to do my performance tests later. 

I continue to be amazed by the EFIS.  Why anybody would want a six pack is beyond me.