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Message
Greetings,
First, the tiny tach seems
to be working fine, but that was the only good news of the day.
The engine is running worse
than ever for some reason. I need to check the plugs to see if one is
fouled. Hopefully, it's something that simple. Thankfully, there
were no witnesses to the ugly run :-) The thing is even
quieter now that it's out in the open at the airport. No problem at all
with noise with the turbo, and no muffler.
My new Van's aircraft fuel
gauge seemed to be very accurate, right up until it died. Grumble,
grumble...
Finally, my plane is a big
fat pig! Man is it heavy! I'm almost in disbelief of the
numbers, but the scales are known to be accurate (dang it). The empty
weight is a whopping 924 lb!!!! Van's target figure is 780 (counting oil),
and the gross weight limit is 1100, which is pretty unrealistic for most
folks. Needless to say, I'm pretty bummed. Preliminary W&B
figures show that I either need to gain 35 pounds <G>, or add some weight
to the tail. With my current 190 lb weight, and no baggage, I'd need to
add 6 pounds to make it just inside the forward limit for CG. I will
always have about 10 lb of tools and tie-downs in the baggage compartment (aft),
so that will help also. I hate to add even more weight, but at this point,
it's probably the lesser of evils since I want to try the turbo. If I
decide to ditch the turbo, then I can probably remove the weight.
Either way, I sure am glad I have the "B" wings.
Rusty
Turbo 13B
RV-3B
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