Spent the last month addressing issues uncovered during my first flight. Today was the day for flight number 2. OAT was in the low 50s. Temps during climbout up to 6,000 were good. Leveled out and stayed at full throttle for a couple of minutes just to see what happens. Saw indicated airspeed in the mid 150KTS range. RPM was 5500. Both were still creeping up when I throttled back. Looks like I may be slightly over-propped. Temps still fine.

 Throttled back to 5000 RPM and just flew racetracks over the airport for an hour. My flight test area is very restrictive. I've got a huge piece of the desert to the east but have to cross a 3500' mountain and 30 - 40 miles of rugged terrain to get there. Not until I have a few more hours on it in flight and have 100% confidence. I have the Mexican border 2 miles south, Class B 2 miles north and the Pacific Ocean 5 miles west. So racetracks over the airport are going to be the norm for a few hours.

 So, 5,000', 5,000 RPM, roughly 20 - 21" MAP, and indicating 140 KTS. Temps 170 on the coolant and 168 on the oil. I've already met my goal for this airplane on the second flight - this airplane is a little faster than my old RV-6A was at equal power settings. The -6A had a 160 HP Lyc in it.

 Looks like the revised static system has solved my airspeed indication problems. Stall speeds are in line with the Vans book numbers and airspeed correlates pretty well with the GPS groundspeed. Still need more left trim tab.

 The engine ran great. Anyone trying to tune up Tracy's EC2 without either having an EM2/3 or Ed Anderson's EFISM, you're wasting your time. I spent the better part of a year tweaking the MAP table and thought I had it pretty well done. On my first flight I spent a fair amount of time fiddling with mixtures and had a couple of rough running spots. I installed Ed's EFISM and spent 2 days tweaking. In the process I got the engine running smoother than it ever has and now have it idling nicely at 1350 RPM. Thats 300 RPM lower than I was ever able to get it previously. In my opinion you really HAVE to have some sort of indication of what is loaded in the MAP table to effectively tune it.

 The only hiccup was when I came in to land. Tower asked for me to extend my downwind for traffic so I added a little power to hold altitude. And ended up setting the power right at the injector staging point, which still seems to run a little lean. Nothing like having the engine cough just as the runway is receding over your left shoulder. Took me a couple of seconds to realize what was going on and then added a little power and that cleared it up.

 Then managed to bounce the landing. How many landings can I log on one approach? Oh well, I guess I'm a little tailwheel rusty. And without the cowl cheeks the view over the nose is very different so I havent quite got the pitch attitude figured out yet.

 Other impressions. The airplane is loud, but not painfully so. At least not from the pilot's seat. The handling and control power still seem quite a bit better than my RV-6A (which was great). Not really clear why but most of my flying in the -6A I had someone in the right seat so maybe the weight? Other than the rudder, the airplane flies perfectly straight.

 All things considered I'm real happy. This flight was considerably less stressful than the first and I actually was able to enjoy it. I honestly dont remember a lot of the first flight. Also, I took my glider data logger with me on this flight. I havent downloaded it yet, but when I do I'll know more about speeds, climb rate, etc.

 Dont know how you guys feel about these flight reports. Give me some feedback if you want more as my testing progresses. I know that I like reading about other's flight experiences as it motivated me to keep going. After 13 years of building I'll tell you, its worth it. Now I wish I'd pressed harder to get it done sooner.

 Next flight will have to wait until I get gear leg stiffeners added. Classic RV - pretty bad shimmy on the roll out after landing. 38.5 hours to go!

Mike Wills

RV-4 N144MW