Its been a while
since I posted anything on Fly Rotary, so I though I would post a progress
report on my 20B Lancair ES. This report will pale by comparison to
Buly’s first flight report. But here it is
anyway.
Well, after many
hours of pain and suffering, I finally got the cowl installation
finished. There are some minor “finish-up” items, but for the most part,
it is done, except for some micro and primer. Wahoo!!! Now on to
more enjoyable stuff.
After getting the
cowl install done I felt that I really needed some fun. Last time I ran
the engine was before Christmas ‘05. So, I decided to roll the ES out of
the hangar and run it a little yesterday. After looking over the engine
compartment for loose items I set the parking brake and chocked the wheels
just to be sure. Before I could even get settled in the cockpit a
small crowd had formed. It seems like that’s going to be the norm for a
while yet.
Oops #1… a few weeks
back I had unplugged the lead to the starter solenoid so I wouldn’t
accidentally trigger the starter while working on installing the cowl
fasteners. As luck would have it, I had neglected to plug the connector
back into the starter solenoid. When I hit the start switch all I got
was “click, click”. Then I remembered disconnecting the starter
solenoid lead. Phil plugged it back in and we were good for engine
start.
Oops #2… The next
thing I did was flood the engine to the point that there was fuel running out
of the exhaust. It formed about a 1’ dia. puddle on the pavement.
With temps in the 90’s, I guess I didn’t really need to use the “Cold
Start” feature. That plus a few hits on the primer/program button had it
flooded royally. A short wait for the puddle to dry followed by cranking
with the fuel pumps off and throttle open got it cleared out. Ready to
try it again, Mains ON, ignition ON, “COLD START” OFF, pumps ON, and coils
ON. Hit START… And this time she started right up. Turn on ALT FLD
for MAIN and AUX alternators, both are
charging. After warming up the engine and with all readings in the
green, and an OK from my observer Phil standing off to the side (next to the
fire extinguisher), I ran it up to 2500, then 3000, 3500, 4000, and
4400. It felt strong and like it wanted to keep revving faster and
faster. A little tweaking with the mixture knob made a huge difference
in smoothness. Its really obvious when the mixture is set right by how
silky smooth the 20B gets. Its like having an electric motor under the
cowl. Too cool!
It was at that point
that Phil yelled that things were blowing around inside the hangar and stuff
was dancing around on the shelves. I had wanted to go to 5k, but decided
to call it quits for the day and so I shut her down. I still need to do
the finer tuning with the new auto-tune feature, but I was pretty happy with
how strong it ran. The crowd, with their windblown faces, dispersed and
Phil and I rolled the ES back into the hangar. Next weekend it will be
back to working on the last 10%.
Keep
building…
Mark