Having "finished" my plane and signed off in January, I've been tinkering
with minor improvements, engine tuning, and building up my own flying
currency ever since.  Just about the time all of that came together the
infamous Pacific Northwest weather socked us in and it looked like it would
be weeks, months, yea even years before I could do my first flight in N31CZ.
Well we got a temporary reprieve and today was the day! At about 8:45AM PDT,
N31CZ defied the laws of physics and actually left the hard but comfortable
surface of our planet!

Takeoff was picture perfect - IF you think porpoises are perfect!  I thought
I was holding back pressure on the stick and at about 75kts when my flight
advisor (Tom Staggs), who was behind me, calmly said "rotate" (since I
obviously wasn't doing it on my own!), I somewhat aggressively pulled back
on the stick (yes, despite what I planned and what we had just talked
about). YIKES! Not only does that make the nose leave the runway in a big
hurry - but if your ailerons aren't neutral - you'll also make a pretty
quick turn at about 10feet!!!  My cat like reflexes aside - it was a very
colorful start!

Once I settled down and opened my eyes again I was climbing at what my
airspeed indicator said was about 95-100kts. We made it to 600 feet AGL and
began a continuous, slow, climbing turn to crosswind and downwind. (not sure
why I was making it a gentle turn - I already learned that it could turn on
a dime!). We continued the climb and leveled off at 3000AGL to settle down
and look things over. There were lots of dirty gray puff-ball clouds
floating about between 3000 and 4000 feet so we angled out "race track"
pattern between the clouds and checked out maneuverability. Remarkably it
seems I have a good balance of errors in the airframe because it flew
straight and level hands off - aileron trim centered. I expected to have at
least a few issues - I don't know why - it just seems like the precision, or
lack thereof, of foam, fiberglass, and filler/micro would lead to more
anomalies. But I'll accept it!

The Mazda Rotary, 13B (non-turbo) engine worked fine. Not great, but fine.
Temps were in the mid-170's for both oil and water the whole time. (Outside
air temp was 35F-40F). But power was a little anemic, so I'll still have
some tuning to explore.

During our check of the lower speeds (70-80kts) I discovered that my
airspeed indicator is off by about 12-15kts on the low end and 10kts in the
110-120kt range.  When I was reading 90kts, Tom was calling out 78kts. It is
great that I had someone flying chase and able to help confirm airspeed and
altimeter. So, a mental adjustment to all the pre-planned airspeeds was
needed.

We had planned on at least one fly-by to get used to the sight picture and
get the feel of how the plane descends at various throttle settings. That
first pass was pretty good and at 50ft I throttled up to go around. The
second pass was just like the first - Oh, yeah, I'm actually supposed to
descend through 50ft AGL - actually I did but was introduced to Mr. Float!
Go around! The next time I had the picture and was able to make a relatively
unremarkable landing.

From takeoff to landing I'm told it was 38 minutes. I'll just have to accept
that since I couldn't tell you whether it was 15 minutes or 2 hours. But it
is interesting that in one of those quirks that God devises that 0.4 hours
of flying time finished off another page in my log book and when I added up
the numbers after I got to work it turns out I now have EXACTLY 100.0 hours
as a pilot! Lord willing, it will be a couple thousand more before I'm done!

Now for the Oscar's moment: "I'd like to thank..."
- My wife who puts up with all my crazy hobbies.
- Burt Rutan and Nat Puffer for making it so easy, even I could do it.
- Marc Z. and the Cozy "support group" - it made a huge difference
- Steve Foote - a friend who shared my building adventure
- Joe Person - EAA Tech counselor
- Tom Staggs - Flight Advisor - for spending hours of his time getting me
ready to fly and being there to hold my wing, errr hand while I stumbled
around the sky today!

Joe Hull
Cozy Mk-IV #991 (In Phase1 Flight Test - 0.4 hrs flown!!)
Redmond (Seattle), Washington



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