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What did you do with your RV this weekend? (11/7/2020 - 11/8/2020)

avrojockey

Well Known Member
Patron
I'm kicking it off a little early...

The weather in WI/MN has been awesome this week so my wife and I decided to suck up as much of the 70s as global warming can put out because it turns to the normal 30s-40s on Tuesday.

Took a trip today from KATW (Appleton, WI) to KDYT (Duluth/Sky Harbor, MN). CAVOK the whole day, just a little bumpy down low.

Funny pic...this was not staged and my wife didn't catch it until we arrived home....

FYI...the sunset pic is not edited in any way...straight from the new iPhone 12 Pro. The sky looked like that almost the entire ride home
 

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Thanks for starting the thread a bit early, Tim.

Because I was leaving town today, I decided to do some RV flying yesterday. My initial plan was to fly from Fallbrook (L18) to San Diego Brown Field (KSDM) to get gas, and then fly back to Fallbrook. It's a nice flight along the coast, and by downtown San Diego. Takes around an hour, roundtrip.

As I drove to the airport, I decided to change my plans a bit.. and instead headed up to Big Bear (L35) to get gas. Still about an hour roundtrip, and quite scenic, as Big Bear is around 7,000' MSL, and the views flying there are plenty. So, fueled up and then headed back to Fallbrook to put the airplane away..

Today I jumped into my "other" RV (umm, revenue vehicle? You know, the thing that makes me money!) and flew over to Hawaii... Pretty different economics between the two. I burned more fuel on the way here today than I would flying my RV 200 hours. :eek:
 

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Quick flight around Rio de Janeiro !

My weekend therapy !
 

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Well, weekend's not over yet, but I wanted to get this done before the temps drop from the 60's-70's back into the 30's-40's this upcoming week. It's a great luxury to work on one's airplane in Minnesota in November in shirtsleeves and with the hangar door open....and no permeating smell of kerosene from the bullet heater.

I wanted to get the oil switched over to 15W50 for the winter (before it got to be winter) and get the plugs changed. At the last condition inspection a couple of months ago (previous owner), they only cleaned and gapped them. At $2.50 per plug (P-Mags), I thought I'd put new ones in as long as the cowl was off. I'd been having some fouling issues on taxi, but all 8 plugs were a beautiful light tan color, so I must not be leaning for taxi aggressively enough. Thankfully, dissecting the filter yielded no metal pathology...we'll see what Blackstone says. I did find a rather distressing chunk of gasket in the sump strainer.

All-in-all, a nice day with the RV-9A. I am not very experienced with aircraft maintenance and I learned a lot.
 

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Been working on my online flight instructor renewal. What a PITA! Obsolete information, misstatements, outright errors. At least it’s not good flying weather this weekend.
 
Bessies Diner Janesville

Quick trip with a few folks from KCID. Nice tail wind on the way up. Stopped in Monroe (KEFT) for cheap gas on the way home.
 

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What Display is that?

Denis, What Display is that? Its a really user friendly layout.
 
Breakfast Run KDXE

My good friend, Bobby Hester, kept telling me to go to Airways Cafe.

I just ordered a waffle & man was it good. $1.92. No joke!! I could not believe it was so cheap.

Anyway, it was a great flight over & back. Smooth as glass.

My pictures include taking off from KFRH & cruise at 6500 over & 9500 back home.

Thanks
Darren Kerns
RV7 N599DT
 

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I told you!

Airways Cafe in Dexter, MO (KDXE)
This is one great place to fly to and eat. The restaurant is right on the airfield and right off one of the main roads so the locals keep it hoping. If your anywhere near it check it out! I didn’t get to go today but here are some pics from my last trip.
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What I did

I didn’t get to fly today, but I did do a Dynamic Prop Balance for William Frymark. William flew 2 hr down to get his Prop Balance, it was a perfect day to fly. His first reading was pretty good at 0.22 ips so I plotted it on the chart and added the calculated weight adjustment and the next reading showed that I pretty much nailed it. 0.02 ips. That was the easiest one I’ve done. He was happy and had a good tail wind home.

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I didn’t get to fly today, but I did do a Dynamic Prop Balance for William Frymark. William flew 2 hr down to get his Prop Balance, it was a perfect day to fly. His first reading was pretty good at 0.22 ips so I plotted it on the chart and added the calculated weight adjustment and the next reading showed that I pretty much nailed it. 0.02 ips. That was the easiest one I’ve done. He was happy and had a good tail wind home.

View attachment 4430 View attachment 4435 View attachment 4436

good job getting it balanced. I flew around the country for 2 yrs before I did a prop balance. I kept wondering, why are my feet becoming numb? when you think about it flying, it really is all about the foot. the foot is the most important control input and is the ultimate engine sensor. foot, foot, foot! if I could fly with just using my feet, I would. :)
 
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Inspection time

No flying for me. Some day I’ll count the screws that come out for a condition inspection. Nah.
Super thorough job. I even pulled all my rocker arms and wobble checked the valves. All super smooth. Replacing brake rotors this time around with a little upgrade. More on this later (if it works).:p
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first run

Started up the Rotax (912 ULS) on Sunday. Felt the power! Canopy is off to do final finessing & fitment (more sanding of forward fairing). Will move to airfield (8A1) for first flight this month.
 
No flying for me. Some day I’ll count the screws that come out for a condition inspection. Nah.
Super thorough job. I even pulled all my rocker arms and wobble checked the valves. All super smooth. Replacing brake rotors this time around with a little upgrade. More on this later (if it works).:p
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I like your spring compression tool Anthony! Good job!
 
Flew 6.2 hours this weekend. Getting close to visiting all the neighboring states. The RV-12 and I have been to NY, PA, VW, IN, and just did MI. Probably have to wait until next summer to do the long haul to KY with a stop at Sporty's in Batavia. I'll also stop at Georgetown, OH where the original owner built my plane. Buy then, the 12 should be near 700TT.
 
i was going to make one, but now I don't have to, I know where you live......

if this weather clears is it going to be back together in time for taco Tuesday?

bob burns
RV-4 N82RB
 
Took a couple grandkids for their first RV flights and their father for his first with me. Everyone had a great time, especially me.
Here’s 5 year old Layla with the RV grin.
 

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Well, a week ago a friend and I finished up conditional inspection on my new to me RV-12. Nov is a much cooler month than Oct to be crawling around with a magnifying glass in the tail cone section checking cables and wiring here in So CA.

This week, I hope to give the Slippery Blue Devil a good belly rub and massage to get all the gunk off of her from when she was clean when I first bought her with 170 hrs on her. 21 of those were by the ferry, getting her from SC to CA back in June. Complete inspection by my AP friend who built his own RV-12, in June, as soon as she got home, just to be for sure, for sure. About 225 hrs now.

She took care of me for my first solo on Wednesday, she deserves to be cleaned up and looking good again. I'm based at KWHP, solo was 30 mins away at KOXR.

You only get this feeling once in life. First time no one has sat next to me while the motors been running, and I was in charge of doing everything. 62 years of age is not too late to learn how to fly. But crazy is going and buying your own plane, and not renting, to learn how it's done, especially during all this Covid-19 cr*p. Much higher stakes and risk when you do a bad landing in your own baby.

 
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I'm still learning my 6A bit by bit...flew a bit around the Cheseapeake Bay while we had glorious weather.

Planning on wiring up the fuel sender units to the EIS, and will likely have to do an oil change here before too long. My first airplane oil change.
 
....

She took care of me for my first solo on Wednesday, she deserves to be cleaned up and looking good again.

You only get this feeling once in life. First time no one has sat next to me while the motors been running, and I was in charge of doing everything.


.....




Very nice congratulations on your solo Randy! Head my way on your long cross country :)
 
Vlad,

Still intimidated by those mountains of UT... wondering if it's better to stop in St George, get Costco fuel and Pizza with the courtesy car, then fly up I-15, and across near Scipio, and what the winds are link on the East side over all that desert up to Vernal, lenticular clouds and or rotors, or fly in to Page AZ and follow the Green River up.

I will get there, by AWD or by Air RV-12... I promise. Got some handicaps... Daytime VFR only, 10,000 ft or 2000 AGL over mountains, as needed, ground in sight at all time and 120 kts , 112 to 115 at 8.5 to 10k to maximize range, having 1/2 hr reserve, everyone says she burns 5 gals/hr.

Having 10.5 # per square ft wing loading so you can have a 45k /41 kt stall speed makes even light turbulence really uncomfortable. Slowing down to 90 kts in bumpy air is another self preservation tactic that eats into time to make your destination. I have to gain the experience to make the good decisions to know when to call it quits before too many things tip the wrong way against you, and your better judgement. I need a big window of great weather to get 'er done, without spending too many nights at motel 6 holed up waiting out the weather. Heck, got to see if my heater even works good and proper, still.
 
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Fall Flight

The wife and I took a nice Sunday afternoon round robin flight from the Southeast Virginia coast to the Blue Ridge mountains and back. The fall colors were fading but the scenery was still spectacular. Besides the scenery and excellent weather we were surprised the sky wasn’t more crowded. In fact there were very few aircraft to be seen or heard on the radios. Thanks Van’s for enabling us to create these incredible experiences! Here’s a short video of the flight. Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/BKCIqVJs3eY
 
Prop balancing

As Bobby Hester said, he balanced my prop and did it very efficiently. I enjoyed meeting him and the whole experience was great. I can't recommend him enough. My 7 likes him too!
 
I flew it in circles

... for the very first time.

I'd post a pic but the photos sent to me from friends' phones end in the extension .heic on. my Mac. The photo uploader here says "invalid."

Photo and video evidence for my claim is on the RV-10 FB page :D

All went smoothly. It flies just like an RV should - which means it has a heavy wing and needs a right rudder trim tab... The success Friday could not be duplicated the rest of the calm, CAVU weekend due to a clogged injector (happened twice to same cylinder a week apart) and Pb-fouled plugs (I forgot how to manage 100LL on the ground after flying mogas for 20+ years)!

I've got some investigating to do regarding fine debris in the fuel system either getting or originating beyond my filters and screens. And I need to lean on the ground and in taxi (my head was full of "run it full rich and hard for break-in" mantras and I had a lapse of common pilot sense).
 
... for the very first time.

I'd post a pic but the photos sent to me from friends' phones end in the extension .heic on. my Mac. The photo uploader here says "invalid."

Hi Efficiency Image Codec is format used by default when taking picts with the iOS camera app now.

Open images in Preview on your Mac, select ll the images in the sidebar, and go to File > Export Selected Images, under Options select preferred format.
 
Condition Inspection a month early because the hangar weather is way nicer now than in December. My youngest 2 enjoying the weather after school.....

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What you see on my hangar floor is most of a full can of LPS2 that has drained out the flap rod hole from my fuse...........
I had just lubed all the rod end bearings and checked the torque on the spars and control linkages, replaced the floor plans and had proceeded to crawl under the panel. Somehow amiss the pile of blankets/cushions part of my contorted body (butt) knocked over the LPS and applied enough pressure long enough to pretty much empty my new can down the floor of my airplane without my knowledge.

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I added the rear bulkhead stiffeners for the tail wheelspring as advised by Van's service letter. I found the arc's noted in the service letter kinda hard to put on the the actual airplane. I estimated the arcs as best I could and found they were within a smidge of the natural rivet lines on my 7. Since I was making my own stiffeners from the leftover J channel material I centerlined the existing horizontal rivet lines and measured in 22/32 from the existing vertical rivet lines to clear the bulkhead flanges on the inside. This method mirrored both sides perfectly.

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I drilled the 2 end holes in the fuse and 1 end hole on the stiffener and drilled in place.

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My original panel lighting LED strip switch would intermittently come on. It had a semi exposed circuit board and assumed a rogue aluminum chip was causing it to short to on, I'd vacuumed and blew it out several times and still had the issue so I pulled the fuse. I bought and installed this:

https://www.amazon.com/Oznium-Dimme...pwm+dimmer&qid=1605071260&s=automotive&sr=1-5

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It does dim way lower than my previous PWM dimmer, ops check in a couple days to check for noise.

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Thanks guys - the plane turned out great. Lots of people involved in its successful completion, including you, Tom, not to mention tons of people on this site so thank you!
 
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