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Congratulations, Todd! I'm glad to hear the waterpump worked as expected.
Fred
At 11:43 PM 9/1/2003 -0700, you wrote:
Hi
Guy's
13:32 PST another rotary
climbed into the air, 3 years and a month after construction started. It
was worth every single sacrifice. I made an attempt to record flight
data, but was kinda excited to do a good job of it, and now I'm enjoying
a couple of beers, but I'll give an outline of events and post better
data after more flights.
First flight only lasted 18
minutes, as we could faintly smell oil burning, so returned for
inspection. On removal of cowl we found that the oil injection lines had
melted off of their attachment to the metering pump. Even though I felt
it was unlikely we speculated that heat from the exhaust may have caused
it. So I replaced these and sleeved them with Hi-temp 3/8 hose. The
second flight was supposed to be a short hop just to test this but as
everything was working we continued on. This lasted 42 minutes. Upon
inspection after landing we discovered the protective sleeve burned but
this showed me the source of the heat appears to be the turbo manifold
gasket seems to be leaking, directing a stream of hot exhaust gases. As
it was too warm to investigate further we decided to call it a day and
get some beer. Tomorrow I'll remove the turbo and exhaust and investigate
further. I just hope that the manifold hasn't cracked.
Temps on climb out peaked at
98C (208F) for the coolant and 95C (203F) for the oil. I was running the
EWP on bypass from the controller, meaning it would just run at a full
12v supply continuously. This caused me an anxious moment when on descent
on the first flight, as it suddenly dropped of below the bottom of the
scale and pressure dropped from 20psi to 5psi. I thought we'd sprung a
leak but as soon as we landed and began to taxi temps climbed back to
80C. I guess I'll have to start trusting the electronic temp controller
to maintain temps.
I'm experiencing similar
disappointment as Rusty in my climb speeds. However on the second flight
we used the GPS to do a few runs to check the airspeed we found that it
reads 15-20 mph slow. This meant we were climbing at too high of an
airspeed. Even when we adjusted for this is was still disappointing. I
feel that a big part over the problem may be that I'm over-propped. I'm
currently using a 76" 3-blade IVO prop, which may need to be
shortened. I've got allot of testing to do before I shorten it however. I
have heard all the good and bad reports on the IVO prop, so I was already
aware that it may not be ideal or may be perfect, but decided that I'd
like to find out for myself.
I have to commend my test
pilot Ron, who took care of most of the flying duties while I closely
watched the engine (he let me have a few minutes of stick time on each
flight). The airframe handled beautifully, flies like a dream. It
required a little left rudder on take-off, no rudder at all at 130-160mph
and a little right rudder above 160. Both landings were perfect greasers,
so I guess tomorrow I'll have to do landing just to test the gear
:-)
It was a pretty successful
day with a few snags to be dealt with, but damn it feels
great..... WhaaaaHooooooo
S. Todd Bartrim
Turbo 13B RV-9Endurance
C-FSTB
http://www3.telus.net/haywire/RV-9/C-FSTB.htm
"Whatever you vividly imagine, Ardently
desire, Sincerely believe in, Enthusiastically act upon, Must inevitably
come to pass".
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