I got down to the airport mid-morning so that I could fix the lower empennage fairing.  I trimmed the extra glass I added and then worked on the rivnut that replaced the ClickBond nut plate that popped off.  I drilled the hole out to 0.182″ and then filed a notch for the keyed rivnut.  The keyed variety has a small protrusion under the head to prevent the rivnut from rotating if it ever loosens up.  Finally, I reinstalled the fairing.  I still have some filler to apply, but it’s looking much better.

After buttoning everything up, I took the plane out and flew for a little bit.  The right fuel tank calibration looks good and showed a full tank, so I switched to the left tank so I could run it dry in order to calibrate it.  I headed down to Hollister so that I could help Greg with the reassembly of his RV-8.  I got there a little bit before the plane and the crew showed up, so I stayed in the pattern for a bit and practiced wheel landings.  I bounced one, but the other three were very nice.

After helping to unload, we grabbed some lunch and got started on the reassembly.  After some final prep work, we got the wings slotted in and a couple of close tolerance bolts in on each side. We got both ailerons attached and hooked up the fuel and vent lines.

It started getting dark and I needed to be back on the ground at South County before night.  I headed out right around sunset and got back up to South County in just a few minutes.  It was still fairly bright out, so I stayed in the pattern for a bit and did some touch and go’s as the sky darkened so that I could get used to the sight picture and get a feel for how bright the landing and taxi lights are.  I stopped about 10 minutes before it got truly dark, but it was good practice and it looks like the lights are plenty bright.

After burning off the four gallons in the right tank, I calibrated it in the SkyView system.  I’m using a scale that has 1 gram accuracy, and I’m measuring roughly 1 gallon at a time.  Given the accuracy of the scale, I should be able to measure the fuel capacity within one-tenth of a gallon over the 21 gallon capacity of the tank.

I added two gallons at a time up through 20 gallons, hitting the add button at each point on the SkyView.  I used the opportunity to calibrate my dip-stick at the same time.  Finally, I filled the tank to the very top and measured the amount of additional fuel I added.  I ended up with 20.43 gallons of usable fuel.  The claimed fuel capacity is 21 gallons, so there’s only a little over 1/2 gallon of unusable fuel.  That’s more than I was expecting, but the flop tube pickups may leave a little more fuel in the tank than the standard pickups.  I still need to do some in-flight checks to determine unusable fuel in all normal flight attitudes including full slips.

Unfortunately, I almost completely drained my battery in the process.  I was down to 10.2 volts before I shut everything down and hooked the plane back up to the trickle charger.  I’m planning on flying again in a couple of days, so I hope the battery is charged enough.  I’m thinking I might need to replace the battery anyway since I killed it at least twice during the build (so dead that the trickle charger wouldn’t bring it back).

Although I had previously calibrated the capacitive fuel senders by setting the empty and full points, I still needed to fill the tank in 2 gallon increments to create the voltage to fuel level mapping.  I started with an empty tank and created the first calibration point.  I thought it was a little odd that the sensor showed 5 volts, but didn’t give it too much thought.  I added the first 2 gallons, but the sensor still showed 5 volts.  I was pretty convinced something was wrong at this point, but I added a couple more gallons to confirm.  Sure enough, the sensor still showed 5 volts.  I started to worry that the sender was outputting a bogus value, but I decided to confirm all of the settings first.  Fortunately, I pretty quickly found out that I hadn’t configured the correct input pins on the EMS.  I needed to switch from the default (pins 20 and 21) to the ones I wired the senders to (pins 22 and 31) and change the input type to capacitive from resistive.  With that change, I was getting voltage values that made sense for both tanks (2.9 volts from the left tank which is probably around half full and under a volt for the right tank which had the four gallons I just added).  Unfortunately, I now need to empty the right tank again to redo the calibration.  I could try to drain the four gallons out, but it’s probably easier to just fly again and run that tank dry.

I wrapped up the inspection from yesterday and turned the oil pressure regulator all the way down.  I pulled the plane out and took it for its second flight.  This was mostly a duplicate of the first flight to get a little more confidence in the engine and other systems, but I stayed up for nearly an hour instead of 30 minutes.  I kept the power up over 75% for most of the flight, but slowed down to do a few more stalls and a couple of power on stalls (both in the video below).  You can see the power on stall by how high the nose is above the horizon.

I also had a chance to test the autopilot a bit.  Since I was mostly flying racetrack patterns around the airport, I engaged the altitude hold mode at 5,000′ and used the heading bug to drive the plane around.  I also tested the vertical speed hold mode and altitude intercept, and everything worked beautifully.  On the descent, I tested the roll hold mode which keeps a constant bank angle.  This was great for spiraling down to pattern altitude.

The plane ran great, and the oil pressure is down a bit, but I’m still getting over 95 psi at takeoff.  This is the red line that AeroSport recommended I set, but Lycoming allows up to 115 psi for takeoff.  I’m running about 85 psi in cruise, so I may be just fine.

I also had a chance to test my oil cooler butterfly valve effectiveness, and I’m very pleased with how well it works.  In cruise, I was running 185º F with the valve wide open.  I closed the valve and the temp climbed up to 223º F within just a couple of minutes.  It was still climbing, but the engine monitor was complaining about the high oil temp, so I opened the valve back up.  The temp rapidly dropped back to 185º F.  This should be really useful in cold temps to keep my oil temperature up.

I remembered to turn on the forward facing GoPro camera in the cockpit, and I also hooked up a camera under the tailwheel spring.  That provides a nice view of the main wheels during takeoff and landing.

I just had a couple of things to do this morning before the plane was ready for first flight.  I installed the cowl inlet seals and then installed the cowl.  I also reinstalled the lower empennage fairings.  Finally, I got the GoPro cameras ready and changed into my Nomex flight suit.  Jenn grabbed this picture of me for posterity.

Several people wanted to get some last minute pictures before the flight.

Here is a video of the first flight.  The flight itself was a non-event.  Everything went beautifully and the plane flew hands off.  My buddy Greg flew chase in his Bonanza and we were able to check airspeeds and altitudes.  My buddy Andre and Jenn manned radios on the ground.  Thanks to everyone who came out for this momentous milestone.

After the flight, Jenn grabbed another picture of me to prove I survived.

I did a very thorough post-flight inspection and found a couple of minor things to change.  The silicone wrap I used here had rubbed through, so I used a layer of spiral wrap and some electrical tape to provide a wear layer here.

There was a missing tie-wrap here.  Not sure if it broke or I had just missed it.

My oil pressure was high.  I swapped the oil pressure regulator and have it turned all the way down, so I was starting to suspect the sender.  I rigged up a secondary gauge and confirmed the sender is correct.

Greg and I wrapped up our transition training today.  We each got between 8-9 hours total, and I’m feeling pretty comfortable in the airplane.

We did a little more air work today including more slow flight and stalls.  We also did some power off landings as well as short and soft field landings.  The weather was substantially better than yesterday, so we were able to climb a bit higher and do some acro.  Thanks to Mike’s excellent instruction, I’m ready for first flight.

Today was a full day of training, and we each got 2 flights in.  Although the weather was forecast to be better in the afternoon, it was actually worse with some really low clouds through the hills that we need to fly over between Vernonia and Scappoose.  Fortunately, Mike knows the terrain like the back of his hand, so we were able to scud run between the hills and the low-level clouds and get through.  We did have to try a couple of valleys before we found one where we could make it through though.

The first flight in the morning was mostly takeoff and landing practice like yesterday with stop and go, three-point landings.  I still bounced a few, but I’m quickly getting the hang of landing the plane.  During the second flight, we moved on to wheel landings and power off approaches.  The wheel landings are a little more sensitive than the Decathlon I’ve been flying, but two out of the three I tried were pretty good.  Power off approaches were interesting as the descent angle is very steep at 85 MPH, full flaps, and no power.  We started our base turn abeam the touchdown point and that worked out well.  I was able to nail all of those without a problem.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, we’ll wrap up with short and soft field takeoffs and landings and maybe a bit more air work.