I had nearly the whole day free and the weather was perfect, so I decided to see if I could get up to 20 hours on the Hobbs.  I didn’t quite make it, but I came close.

I first flew over to Watsonville to meet up with my buddy Dan and his neighbor for lunch and then joined up with Greg in the air for some more formation practice.  I’m definitely getting the hang of formation flying; my throttle and control inputs are getting smaller and smoother.  We even did a formation takeoff which was quite a bit different than a regular takeoff. I was not looking down the runway or at my flight instruments and we were nowhere near full power so that I still had some smash if I started to fall behind.

We landed back at Hollister for some fuel.  I’ve been keeping track of my fuel consumption for the last few flights, so I adjusted the K factor in the EMS to account for the discrepancy between estimated and actual fuel flow.  Greg also helped me do a compass alignment on their compass rose since I hadn’t done that yet and I noticed our headings were sometimes nearly 10º off in flight.  Finally, we played around with some very low power settings to see how efficient we could make the plane.  Down around 80-85 kts, I was getting nearly 30 nmpg.

As the sun was setting, Greg and I headed back to Hollister for some pattern work.  With only two RVs in the pattern, we were able to fly some incredibly tight and fast patterns.  I would turn crosswind well before the departure end of the runway and be at pattern altitude by the time I finished turning onto a tight downwind.  Pulling the power back, I was ready to drop flaps by the approach end of the runway so I could fly a close base.  I didn’t time it, but I doubt that each trip around the pattern took more than a couple of minutes or so.

Greg stopped by yesterday and dropped off 250lbs of sand that he used for his gross weight testing, so I decided to do my testing today.  Because I set my gross at 1950lbs, I actually needed 350lbs of additional weight to hit max gross.  I started by putting the sand in the passenger seat (with the seat bottom and passenger stick removed), and belted it in tight so that it couldn’t shift.  I had partial fuel at this point, so I was right around Van’s recommended gross weight of 1800lbs and 1.2″ in front of the aft CG limit.  I went out and flew at this weight for a bit to determine the impact to the stall speed and handling during landing.

I was still about to get about 1800fpm of climb which is pretty close to Van’s published figures, and the stall speed was only slightly higher.

I then added the bag you see in the passenger floor of the picture above which has 56lbs of tools in it.  I also added a couple of scales to the baggage area which weigh 20lbs each.  After filling up to full fuel, I was right at 1950lbs and 0.7″ in front of the aft CG limit.  I took off at this weight to repeat the same tests.  Even taxiing out, I could feel the difference in handling.  The extra weight on the tailwheel changed the feel of the steering a fair amount.  The takeoff roll felt more sluggish and the climb was noticeably slower at around 1600fpm, but once in the air it felt about the same.  I did a couple of stalls which broke at pretty close to the same airspeed as the lighter weight (although I’m sure it was slightly higher).  I then flew around for quite awhile at a high power setting to burn off some of the fuel.

While I deviated from Van’s recommendation on the gross weight (which you’re allowed to do as the builder), I thought I prudent to set the maximum landing weight of the airplane to be the same as Van’s recommended gross weight to avoid over stressing the gear.  After burning off enough fuel to get down to 1800lbs, I headed back to the airport.  Burning off this much fuel brought the CG back to within 0.3″ of the aft CG limit.  The plane required noticeably less nose up trim in the approach to landing, but the landing itself felt about the same.

With my wife wrapping up her Master’s degree in less than two weeks, it’s been hard finding daylight hours in which to fly.  Since the days are getting longer, I decided to take advantage of the earlier sunrise to get some flying in in the morning when Jenn and the kids are asleep anyway.  I got up at 4:30 this morning and was down at the airport by 5:30.  Sunrise was at 6:13, so it was starting to get light by that point.  I was able to get airborne by 5:45 or so and fly until around 7 before heading home to help get the kids ready for school.  I’m sure I’ll be tired early enough tonight that I can get to sleep early and do this again tomorrow.

I went out for another really early flight this morning.  I dropped into​ Hollister for some pattern work and hit a bird during the flare to land.  I was planning on just a touch and go, but I stopped on the ramp and shut down to see if there was any damage.  This is what I found.  I pulled it out along with a couple of feathers I could reach through the inlet.  The neck was nearly severed and was just hanging on with a few tendons.  Satisfied that there was no damage, I launched again and headed back to South County for further inspection.

When I pulled the cowl and plenum, there were feathers everywhere.  Here’s a small one that stuck to some of the sealant on the injector line.

There were a couple stuck in various places behind the engine.  This is one of the long wing feathers that somehow made it back here.

There were a bunch of feathers down between the cylinder fins and stuck against the heater muff screen.  I’m glad I put a screen here since these could have found their way into the cabin.

There were also a bunch on the screen going to the oil cooler.  Much easier to clean here than pulling the oil cooler plenum.  There were also a couple of blood stains that required a bit of cleaning.  Overall, it was probably on 10-15 minutes to get it all out and there was absolutely no damage.  It could have been much worse.

With Jenn needing to study all day, the only time I could fly was early.  I got up at 4:30 again and managed to get about 3.5 hours of flight time and still got home about the same time the kids got up.

One of the acro maneuvers I had not tried yet was spins with power.  At 7,000 ft, idle gave me about 5″ of manifold pressure, so I started with a spin and 10″ of manifold pressure.  The spin was faster and the nose came up slightly, but it was still very conventional.  I worked my way up in 5″ increments to full power (about 24″).  At full power, the spins have a much more pronounced hookup, and the rotation rate is impressive.  The nose also comes up quite a bit with that much prop wash over the tail driving it down.  It’s a fairly nauseating maneuver, so I don’t think I’ll be doing this with passengers.

I got up at 4 this morning so that I could be airborne right at daybreak.  I got nearly 5 hours in before making it to work at about the same time I normally do.  I’m now only 1 hour shy of my 40 test hours.

I got up early this morning to wrap up my phase 1 flight test period.  Since I only needed one more hour, I didn’t have to get up quite as early as yesterday.  There was a 1700 ft overcast over the airport, but I found a hole and climbed through it.  I used the time to play around with the autopilot, testing editing flight plans, joining courses, etc.  After flying around for about 45 minutes, I descended through another hole and landed.  I taxied up to the hangar right as the hobbs meter rolled 40.0 hours.  I’m officially out of phase 1!

I’ve spent the last week up in San Francisco for our developer’s conference, but I’m home now.  I stopped by the hangar for a bit to straighten up and decided to make some quick chocks to keep the plane from moving if there’s an earthquake.

I was doing an inspection on the plane before the big trip to Oshkosh, and noticed that I’d never turned my ELT on!  I took care of that and then installed the safety cap that will prevent the switch from moving in an accident.

I stopped by the FSDO this morning and received my repairman certificate.  I’m now cleared to signoff my plane for its annual condition inspection.