Today's Message Index:
----------------------
1. 07:26 PM - Crazy Horse Flies! (Frazier, Vincent A)
2. 07:50 PM - Congradulations Vince (Harry Paine)
3. 09:50 PM - Re: spam: Crazy Horse Flies! (Wolfgang Meyn)
4. 09:53 PM - Re: Crazy Horse Flies! (John Danielson)
Message 1
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| Subject: | Crazy Horse Flies! |
--> Rocket-List message posted by: "Frazier, Vincent A" <VFrazier@usi.edu>
No, not crazy horse flies that you find in a barn yard, not even Crazy
Horse the notable P-51.... I'm talking about MY Crazy Horse Rocket. It
flies! (Well, it's not quite a Mustang... but it's as close as I'll get
unless I hit the lottery!)
About 6 weeks ago I realized that I was 99% done with the plane. I
began an insane schedule and long hours of work to finish up that last
1%.
Assuming that the plane was 99% complete 6 weeks ago, multiply the time
I've spent since then by a factor of 100 to estimate the amount of time
the other 99% took exactly 1.22 gadzillion hours. Hmmmm, simple
math. Who knew these things took so long?
BTW,I started this project in 1999. The website soon followed. Hoards
of adoring fans came next (I wish). Soon, I had people calling me for
advice (What were they thinking???!). But now.... I've finally flown
one!!! Now, I can pretend to be an expert and have real BS to back it
up! ;-)
My stupendous friend and fellow RV repeat offender, John Crabtree, has
been helping all along. We had put 0.6 hours on the engine previously
while calibrating the GRT EFIS (very nice BTW) and EIS. We had a few
things to fix. One was an oil leak at the vernatherm base gasket which
just needed to be tightened a bit more. The other was to remove the two
washers that I added to the oil pressure relief spring. I had wanted to
make sure that the newly overhauled engine had plenty of oil
pressure.... it did! 110psi at 1200 rpm. We all agreed that was
probably a bit too high so out came the washers and the relief valve had
the same number of washers that it had prior to the overhaul: none.
Ahh, I digress, here's the flight report:
John and I did the final checks this afternoon. Then we did a full power
run-up for one minute. The CHTs went up. Up to 405 on the highest
cylinder. Not good, but not too bad. Oil temp took much longer to come
up and didn't really get warm until after the flight began.
After the run-up, I had settled down a bit and decided to do one last
quick taxi, brake check, watch the temps for any upward trend, etc. The
temps had dropped a bit and there was a small crowd gathered around,
including my wife.
I wasn't paying any attention to them. None whatsoever. John was
ready in his RV-6 chaseplane. Grant, Bud, and Gene were manning the
rescue vehicle. Tammy (my wife) and Margie (John's wife) were doing
whatever women do. I don't know. Like I said, I was busy.
I lined up on Hepler's 2400' turf runway 27 and started easing the black
knob forward. Everything sounded good, strong, smooth acceleration....
hmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I pushed the throttle the remaining
75% of the way???? I'll have to try that in the future because I was
already flying by then. Heck, I wasn't in any huge hurry to find out
whether the torque would cause problems, so a nice smooth takeoff felt
pretty good. I suppose I used 800', maybe more before breaking ground.
It's right about then that the usual thought goes through my head:
"Well, now we're off. I'll worry about coming back down later."
Seeing as I had only used partial throttle to takeoff, I figured I'd
better bump it up a bit. YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAA!!!! It's like stomping the
gas on my dad's 2002 Corvette. Very smooth, and very powerful. By now
I was passing through 1000' and picking up speed rapidly. I really
don't have a clue as to climb rates, altitudes or speeds, because my
eyes were glued to the EFIS engine page. I was much more concerned
about the temps than the climb rate. Man, I can tell you that the climb
rate and airspeed were just fine and I didn't need a gauge to confirm
it.
The oil temp and pressure were fine, fuel flow and pressure was good,
CHT's were climbing. I dropped the nose a bit more. I was somewhere
around 1500 - 2000' (Who knows? I was busy). The CHT's peaked just
above 400. The highest peaked at about 445... plenty hot, but they came
back down PDQ.
I heard John making his radio calls as he was taking off after I cleared
the area a bit. Our plan was for him to stay on the ground until I was
about a mile out. Our emergency field, Interstate 64, is about 2 miles
from the field, so I was past the point of turning around. BTW, you bet
I'd use that highway if needed! It's lightly travelled and doesn't have
a 20' deep ditch at the end of it like our runway does! The other end
of our runway has a 4' berm just across the road that runs perpedicular
to it. Yikes!
As I levelled off and picked up speed, I started feeling out the
handling and doublechecking the rest of the gauges. Everything was in
the green... although the oil pressure was lower than I wanted to see.
I immediately cursed myself for taking out the washers. I plan to
reinstall one washer tomorrow.
By now, I had time to scroll throught the EFIS screens and see how fast,
how high, etc. I was tooling along at 165mph and John was rapidly
closing the gap. John pulled in close to check for oil leaks, etc.
Not seeing any, he whipped out his trusty digital camera and told me to
just maintain straight and level for a minute. I took a moment to wave
at him, only to see a look of disgust on his face. I knew
immediately.... dead batteries in the digital camera. DOH!
We were over the interstate between Poseyville and the Wabash river,
temps were OK, so I told John it was time to do some stalls. Les
Featherston had warned me that the pitch feel would be quite heavy at
slow speeds. DAMN! He was right. The first power off (well pretty low
power anyway), no flap stall took forever. As I let the speed slowly
bleed off from 90 to 80 to 70... I started thinking "Geez, I'm gonna
pull a muscle in my arm doing this." The pitch feel was that heavy!
Yes, I had the trim all the way nose up! (FWIW, it's an RV-4 tail with
manual trim.) Now, I know why you see Rockets at Oshkosh with huge,
custom trim tabs.
I took my other hand off of the throttle and continued pulling. I don't
recall the IAS at the break, somewhere around 70mph IIRC, but I do know
that there wasn't much of a break, just a lot of turbulence slapping the
stick around.
Temps were still OK, so I pulled on a notch of flaps (manual flaps, my
design, work great, would NOT trade them for electric ever, never, no
way, no how) and tried again. Much the same. A little more aggressive
stick handling gave a small break somewhere around 66mph IAS.
Then full flaps. Since the temps were OK, I swiched on the flight
instrument screen and observed 63mph IAS at the mild break.
After the stall series, I noticed that the ground was somewhat closer
than before. John said he thought I dropped a thousand feet during the
series. Could be. We were definitely sinking fast. Hmmmm, a 1226#
Rocket does sink a heckuva lot faster than the 1000# RV-6 I've been
flying.
John and I turned 180 degrees and started back towards Hepler. We were
back up to 150 IAS or so, when I decided that I'd give her an
acceleration check. I gave the black knob a push forward to about 1/2
or maybe 2/3 of full. Things got noisier. My head got pushed back.
John started flying backwards. It was awesome.
John and I began setting up our approach to the airport. Everything was
looking OK, handling was good, etc. I decided that I'd let down for a
practice approach at about 120 IAS. Looking good, feeling rock solid,
probably could have made a nice semi-downwind landing, but this was just
for practice. Or it might be a little tease for the crowd on the
ground.... he, he,he. I pushed the power up and YEEEHAAAA!!! up we
went. The floor of the Evansville airspace is 1700'. John always busts
my chops when I encroach on their turf, so I had to put the nose back
down and be a good boy.
A 270 to the left put me on a proper downwind. I started pulling levers
and setting up for the real landing. Man, rock solid is the only way to
describe how she feels in the pattern. I was getting about 85-90 on the
approach and the LRI (Lift Reserve Indicator) was sliding slowly toward
the red (stall) line. I think I could have crossed my arm and legs and
taken a nap. Rock solid. The crosswind that was making the sock stand
mostly out wasn't even noticable.
As I crossed the threshold, pulled a little more power, and started a
gentle flare, I was still getting that rock solid, smooth power feel.
The wheels brushed the grass just as I gave the stick a healthy tug. I
expected a bounce and then a tailwheel touch, but got a slightly more
nose down attitude instead and no bounce whatsoever. I gave the stick a
BIG tug and got the most perfect wheel landing I have ever seen.
Dang, now I'll be expecting that kind of landing everytime!
As I taxied back to the waiting crowd, I noticed for the first time that
I was fairly drenched in sweat. Hmmmm, and it was only 70 degrees out.
I pulled up onto the concrete pad next to the hangar. I could tell that
my wife was greatly relieved. Me too. Then we took some photos and
popped some cold beers! Woo hoo!!!
I post some pictures on my website Monday.
I do have some comments about the EIS/EFIS combo. They really seem to
work very well, but they have their quirks. One reason that I wasn't
able to monitor the airspeed, altitude, etc as much as I wanted was
because the "Cruise oil pressure" warning was set too high and the EIS
would not leave that display page. That meant that I had to monitor the
engine parameters on the EFIS screen. Yeah, I know that the EIS and
EFIS are supposed to do that for you... but I wanted to see the data
with my own eyes.
Since the EIS was effectively locked on one page, it was actually
somewhat of a distraction. These bugs can be ironed out. It behooves
anyone using this system to really get the darned thing setup BEFORE
flight.
I also got a "Fuel flow too high" on the EFIS each time I put the noise
lever forward. Hmmmm, need to reset that number to a higher value.
So, first flight a success!!! I can't wait to see how fast she'll go
with full throttle... I never had more than about half throttle on this
flight... no kidding! Hmmmm, and it was showing 220 mph IAS at that!
Once again.... WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!
Many Thanks to John Crabtree, Les, Tom, Harry, Fred, Mark, John.... man
I could name a hundred guys but mostly Thanks go to my ever patient
wife, Tammy.
Vince Frazier
3965 Caborn Road
Mount Vernon, IN 47620
812-464-1839 work
812-985-7309 home
F-1H Rocket, N540VF
http://www.usi.edu/science/chemistry/vfrazier/page1.html
Message 2
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| Subject: | Congradulations Vince |
--> Rocket-List message posted by: Harry Paine <hpaine@earthlink.net>
Grast Job
Wow I think that makes you #101. Now you can fly out to Bakoland for the
flying!!! You too Russ W !!
Harry
HP266
Message 3
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| Subject: | Crazy Horse Flies! |
--> Rocket-List message posted by: "Wolfgang Meyn" <mw104@netmdc.com>
Congratulations Vince.
Check 6
Wolfgang (F1 77)
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rocket-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-rocket-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Frazier,
Vincent A
Subject: spam: Rocket-List: Crazy Horse Flies!
--> Rocket-List message posted by: "Frazier, Vincent A" <VFrazier@usi.edu>
No, not crazy horse flies that you find in a barn yard, not even Crazy
Horse the notable P-51.... I'm talking about MY Crazy Horse Rocket. It
flies! (Well, it's not quite a Mustang... but it's as close as I'll get
unless I hit the lottery!)
About 6 weeks ago I realized that I was 99% done with the plane. I
began an insane schedule and long hours of work to finish up that last
1%.
Assuming that the plane was 99% complete 6 weeks ago, multiply the time
I've spent since then by a factor of 100 to estimate the amount of time
the other 99% took exactly 1.22 gadzillion hours. Hmmmm, simple
math. Who knew these things took so long?
BTW,I started this project in 1999. The website soon followed. Hoards
of adoring fans came next (I wish). Soon, I had people calling me for
advice (What were they thinking???!). But now.... I've finally flown
one!!! Now, I can pretend to be an expert and have real BS to back it
up! ;-)
My stupendous friend and fellow RV repeat offender, John Crabtree, has
been helping all along. We had put 0.6 hours on the engine previously
while calibrating the GRT EFIS (very nice BTW) and EIS. We had a few
things to fix. One was an oil leak at the vernatherm base gasket which
just needed to be tightened a bit more. The other was to remove the two
washers that I added to the oil pressure relief spring. I had wanted to
make sure that the newly overhauled engine had plenty of oil
pressure.... it did! 110psi at 1200 rpm. We all agreed that was
probably a bit too high so out came the washers and the relief valve had
the same number of washers that it had prior to the overhaul: none.
Ahh, I digress, here's the flight report:
John and I did the final checks this afternoon. Then we did a full power
run-up for one minute. The CHTs went up. Up to 405 on the highest
cylinder. Not good, but not too bad. Oil temp took much longer to come
up and didn't really get warm until after the flight began.
After the run-up, I had settled down a bit and decided to do one last
quick taxi, brake check, watch the temps for any upward trend, etc. The
temps had dropped a bit and there was a small crowd gathered around,
including my wife.
I wasn't paying any attention to them. None whatsoever. John was
ready in his RV-6 chaseplane. Grant, Bud, and Gene were manning the
rescue vehicle. Tammy (my wife) and Margie (John's wife) were doing
whatever women do. I don't know. Like I said, I was busy.
I lined up on Hepler's 2400' turf runway 27 and started easing the black
knob forward. Everything sounded good, strong, smooth acceleration....
hmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I pushed the throttle the remaining
75% of the way???? I'll have to try that in the future because I was
already flying by then. Heck, I wasn't in any huge hurry to find out
whether the torque would cause problems, so a nice smooth takeoff felt
pretty good. I suppose I used 800', maybe more before breaking ground.
It's right about then that the usual thought goes through my head:
"Well, now we're off. I'll worry about coming back down later."
Seeing as I had only used partial throttle to takeoff, I figured I'd
better bump it up a bit. YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAA!!!! It's like stomping the
gas on my dad's 2002 Corvette. Very smooth, and very powerful. By now
I was passing through 1000' and picking up speed rapidly. I really
don't have a clue as to climb rates, altitudes or speeds, because my
eyes were glued to the EFIS engine page. I was much more concerned
about the temps than the climb rate. Man, I can tell you that the climb
rate and airspeed were just fine and I didn't need a gauge to confirm
it.
The oil temp and pressure were fine, fuel flow and pressure was good,
CHT's were climbing. I dropped the nose a bit more. I was somewhere
around 1500 - 2000' (Who knows? I was busy). The CHT's peaked just
above 400. The highest peaked at about 445... plenty hot, but they came
back down PDQ.
I heard John making his radio calls as he was taking off after I cleared
the area a bit. Our plan was for him to stay on the ground until I was
about a mile out. Our emergency field, Interstate 64, is about 2 miles
from the field, so I was past the point of turning around. BTW, you bet
I'd use that highway if needed! It's lightly travelled and doesn't have
a 20' deep ditch at the end of it like our runway does! The other end
of our runway has a 4' berm just across the road that runs perpedicular
to it. Yikes!
As I levelled off and picked up speed, I started feeling out the
handling and doublechecking the rest of the gauges. Everything was in
the green... although the oil pressure was lower than I wanted to see.
I immediately cursed myself for taking out the washers. I plan to
reinstall one washer tomorrow.
By now, I had time to scroll throught the EFIS screens and see how fast,
how high, etc. I was tooling along at 165mph and John was rapidly
closing the gap. John pulled in close to check for oil leaks, etc.
Not seeing any, he whipped out his trusty digital camera and told me to
just maintain straight and level for a minute. I took a moment to wave
at him, only to see a look of disgust on his face. I knew
immediately.... dead batteries in the digital camera. DOH!
We were over the interstate between Poseyville and the Wabash river,
temps were OK, so I told John it was time to do some stalls. Les
Featherston had warned me that the pitch feel would be quite heavy at
slow speeds. DAMN! He was right. The first power off (well pretty low
power anyway), no flap stall took forever. As I let the speed slowly
bleed off from 90 to 80 to 70... I started thinking "Geez, I'm gonna
pull a muscle in my arm doing this." The pitch feel was that heavy!
Yes, I had the trim all the way nose up! (FWIW, it's an RV-4 tail with
manual trim.) Now, I know why you see Rockets at Oshkosh with huge,
custom trim tabs.
I took my other hand off of the throttle and continued pulling. I don't
recall the IAS at the break, somewhere around 70mph IIRC, but I do know
that there wasn't much of a break, just a lot of turbulence slapping the
stick around.
Temps were still OK, so I pulled on a notch of flaps (manual flaps, my
design, work great, would NOT trade them for electric ever, never, no
way, no how) and tried again. Much the same. A little more aggressive
stick handling gave a small break somewhere around 66mph IAS.
Then full flaps. Since the temps were OK, I swiched on the flight
instrument screen and observed 63mph IAS at the mild break.
After the stall series, I noticed that the ground was somewhat closer
than before. John said he thought I dropped a thousand feet during the
series. Could be. We were definitely sinking fast. Hmmmm, a 1226#
Rocket does sink a heckuva lot faster than the 1000# RV-6 I've been
flying.
John and I turned 180 degrees and started back towards Hepler. We were
back up to 150 IAS or so, when I decided that I'd give her an
acceleration check. I gave the black knob a push forward to about 1/2
or maybe 2/3 of full. Things got noisier. My head got pushed back.
John started flying backwards. It was awesome.
John and I began setting up our approach to the airport. Everything was
looking OK, handling was good, etc. I decided that I'd let down for a
practice approach at about 120 IAS. Looking good, feeling rock solid,
probably could have made a nice semi-downwind landing, but this was just
for practice. Or it might be a little tease for the crowd on the
ground.... he, he,he. I pushed the power up and YEEEHAAAA!!! up we
went. The floor of the Evansville airspace is 1700'. John always busts
my chops when I encroach on their turf, so I had to put the nose back
down and be a good boy.
A 270 to the left put me on a proper downwind. I started pulling levers
and setting up for the real landing. Man, rock solid is the only way to
describe how she feels in the pattern. I was getting about 85-90 on the
approach and the LRI (Lift Reserve Indicator) was sliding slowly toward
the red (stall) line. I think I could have crossed my arm and legs and
taken a nap. Rock solid. The crosswind that was making the sock stand
mostly out wasn't even noticable.
As I crossed the threshold, pulled a little more power, and started a
gentle flare, I was still getting that rock solid, smooth power feel.
The wheels brushed the grass just as I gave the stick a healthy tug. I
expected a bounce and then a tailwheel touch, but got a slightly more
nose down attitude instead and no bounce whatsoever. I gave the stick a
BIG tug and got the most perfect wheel landing I have ever seen.
Dang, now I'll be expecting that kind of landing everytime!
As I taxied back to the waiting crowd, I noticed for the first time that
I was fairly drenched in sweat. Hmmmm, and it was only 70 degrees out.
I pulled up onto the concrete pad next to the hangar. I could tell that
my wife was greatly relieved. Me too. Then we took some photos and
popped some cold beers! Woo hoo!!!
I post some pictures on my website Monday.
I do have some comments about the EIS/EFIS combo. They really seem to
work very well, but they have their quirks. One reason that I wasn't
able to monitor the airspeed, altitude, etc as much as I wanted was
because the "Cruise oil pressure" warning was set too high and the EIS
would not leave that display page. That meant that I had to monitor the
engine parameters on the EFIS screen. Yeah, I know that the EIS and
EFIS are supposed to do that for you... but I wanted to see the data
with my own eyes.
Since the EIS was effectively locked on one page, it was actually
somewhat of a distraction. These bugs can be ironed out. It behooves
anyone using this system to really get the darned thing setup BEFORE
flight.
I also got a "Fuel flow too high" on the EFIS each time I put the noise
lever forward. Hmmmm, need to reset that number to a higher value.
So, first flight a success!!! I can't wait to see how fast she'll go
with full throttle... I never had more than about half throttle on this
flight... no kidding! Hmmmm, and it was showing 220 mph IAS at that!
Once again.... WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!
Many Thanks to John Crabtree, Les, Tom, Harry, Fred, Mark, John.... man
I could name a hundred guys but mostly Thanks go to my ever patient
wife, Tammy.
Vince Frazier
3965 Caborn Road
Mount Vernon, IN 47620
812-464-1839 work
812-985-7309 home
F-1H Rocket, N540VF
http://www.usi.edu/science/chemistry/vfrazier/page1.html
Message 4
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| Subject: | Crazy Horse Flies! |
--> Rocket-List message posted by: "John Danielson" <Jdaniel343@bresnan.net>
Great job Vince.
Looks Great
Hope the squeezer helped.
John Danielson
RV-6 Sold
Will build Rocket
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rocket-list-server@matronics.com
[mailto:owner-rocket-list-server@matronics.com] On Behalf Of Frazier,
Vincent A
Subject: Rocket-List: Crazy Horse Flies!
--> Rocket-List message posted by: "Frazier, Vincent A"
<VFrazier@usi.edu>
No, not crazy horse flies that you find in a barn yard, not even Crazy
Horse the notable P-51.... I'm talking about MY Crazy Horse Rocket. It
flies! (Well, it's not quite a Mustang... but it's as close as I'll get
unless I hit the lottery!)
About 6 weeks ago I realized that I was 99% done with the plane. I
began an insane schedule and long hours of work to finish up that last
1%.
Assuming that the plane was 99% complete 6 weeks ago, multiply the time
I've spent since then by a factor of 100 to estimate the amount of time
the other 99% took exactly 1.22 gadzillion hours. Hmmmm, simple
math. Who knew these things took so long?
BTW,I started this project in 1999. The website soon followed. Hoards
of adoring fans came next (I wish). Soon, I had people calling me for
advice (What were they thinking???!). But now.... I've finally flown
one!!! Now, I can pretend to be an expert and have real BS to back it
up! ;-)
My stupendous friend and fellow RV repeat offender, John Crabtree, has
been helping all along. We had put 0.6 hours on the engine previously
while calibrating the GRT EFIS (very nice BTW) and EIS. We had a few
things to fix. One was an oil leak at the vernatherm base gasket which
just needed to be tightened a bit more. The other was to remove the two
washers that I added to the oil pressure relief spring. I had wanted to
make sure that the newly overhauled engine had plenty of oil
pressure.... it did! 110psi at 1200 rpm. We all agreed that was
probably a bit too high so out came the washers and the relief valve had
the same number of washers that it had prior to the overhaul: none.
Ahh, I digress, here's the flight report:
John and I did the final checks this afternoon. Then we did a full power
run-up for one minute. The CHTs went up. Up to 405 on the highest
cylinder. Not good, but not too bad. Oil temp took much longer to come
up and didn't really get warm until after the flight began.
After the run-up, I had settled down a bit and decided to do one last
quick taxi, brake check, watch the temps for any upward trend, etc. The
temps had dropped a bit and there was a small crowd gathered around,
including my wife.
I wasn't paying any attention to them. None whatsoever. John was
ready in his RV-6 chaseplane. Grant, Bud, and Gene were manning the
rescue vehicle. Tammy (my wife) and Margie (John's wife) were doing
whatever women do. I don't know. Like I said, I was busy.
I lined up on Hepler's 2400' turf runway 27 and started easing the black
knob forward. Everything sounded good, strong, smooth acceleration....
hmmmm, I wonder what would happen if I pushed the throttle the remaining
75% of the way???? I'll have to try that in the future because I was
already flying by then. Heck, I wasn't in any huge hurry to find out
whether the torque would cause problems, so a nice smooth takeoff felt
pretty good. I suppose I used 800', maybe more before breaking ground.
It's right about then that the usual thought goes through my head:
"Well, now we're off. I'll worry about coming back down later."
Seeing as I had only used partial throttle to takeoff, I figured I'd
better bump it up a bit. YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAA!!!! It's like stomping the
gas on my dad's 2002 Corvette. Very smooth, and very powerful. By now
I was passing through 1000' and picking up speed rapidly. I really
don't have a clue as to climb rates, altitudes or speeds, because my
eyes were glued to the EFIS engine page. I was much more concerned
about the temps than the climb rate. Man, I can tell you that the climb
rate and airspeed were just fine and I didn't need a gauge to confirm
it.
The oil temp and pressure were fine, fuel flow and pressure was good,
CHT's were climbing. I dropped the nose a bit more. I was somewhere
around 1500 - 2000' (Who knows? I was busy). The CHT's peaked just
above 400. The highest peaked at about 445... plenty hot, but they came
back down PDQ.
I heard John making his radio calls as he was taking off after I cleared
the area a bit. Our plan was for him to stay on the ground until I was
about a mile out. Our emergency field, Interstate 64, is about 2 miles
from the field, so I was past the point of turning around. BTW, you bet
I'd use that highway if needed! It's lightly travelled and doesn't have
a 20' deep ditch at the end of it like our runway does! The other end
of our runway has a 4' berm just across the road that runs perpedicular
to it. Yikes!
As I levelled off and picked up speed, I started feeling out the
handling and doublechecking the rest of the gauges. Everything was in
the green... although the oil pressure was lower than I wanted to see.
I immediately cursed myself for taking out the washers. I plan to
reinstall one washer tomorrow.
By now, I had time to scroll throught the EFIS screens and see how fast,
how high, etc. I was tooling along at 165mph and John was rapidly
closing the gap. John pulled in close to check for oil leaks, etc.
Not seeing any, he whipped out his trusty digital camera and told me to
just maintain straight and level for a minute. I took a moment to wave
at him, only to see a look of disgust on his face. I knew
immediately.... dead batteries in the digital camera. DOH!
We were over the interstate between Poseyville and the Wabash river,
temps were OK, so I told John it was time to do some stalls. Les
Featherston had warned me that the pitch feel would be quite heavy at
slow speeds. DAMN! He was right. The first power off (well pretty low
power anyway), no flap stall took forever. As I let the speed slowly
bleed off from 90 to 80 to 70... I started thinking "Geez, I'm gonna
pull a muscle in my arm doing this." The pitch feel was that heavy!
Yes, I had the trim all the way nose up! (FWIW, it's an RV-4 tail with
manual trim.) Now, I know why you see Rockets at Oshkosh with huge,
custom trim tabs.
I took my other hand off of the throttle and continued pulling. I don't
recall the IAS at the break, somewhere around 70mph IIRC, but I do know
that there wasn't much of a break, just a lot of turbulence slapping the
stick around.
Temps were still OK, so I pulled on a notch of flaps (manual flaps, my
design, work great, would NOT trade them for electric ever, never, no
way, no how) and tried again. Much the same. A little more aggressive
stick handling gave a small break somewhere around 66mph IAS.
Then full flaps. Since the temps were OK, I swiched on the flight
instrument screen and observed 63mph IAS at the mild break.
After the stall series, I noticed that the ground was somewhat closer
than before. John said he thought I dropped a thousand feet during the
series. Could be. We were definitely sinking fast. Hmmmm, a 1226#
Rocket does sink a heckuva lot faster than the 1000# RV-6 I've been
flying.
John and I turned 180 degrees and started back towards Hepler. We were
back up to 150 IAS or so, when I decided that I'd give her an
acceleration check. I gave the black knob a push forward to about 1/2
or maybe 2/3 of full. Things got noisier. My head got pushed back.
John started flying backwards. It was awesome.
John and I began setting up our approach to the airport. Everything was
looking OK, handling was good, etc. I decided that I'd let down for a
practice approach at about 120 IAS. Looking good, feeling rock solid,
probably could have made a nice semi-downwind landing, but this was just
for practice. Or it might be a little tease for the crowd on the
ground.... he, he,he. I pushed the power up and YEEEHAAAA!!! up we
went. The floor of the Evansville airspace is 1700'. John always busts
my chops when I encroach on their turf, so I had to put the nose back
down and be a good boy.
A 270 to the left put me on a proper downwind. I started pulling levers
and setting up for the real landing. Man, rock solid is the only way to
describe how she feels in the pattern. I was getting about 85-90 on the
approach and the LRI (Lift Reserve Indicator) was sliding slowly toward
the red (stall) line. I think I could have crossed my arm and legs and
taken a nap. Rock solid. The crosswind that was making the sock stand
mostly out wasn't even noticable.
As I crossed the threshold, pulled a little more power, and started a
gentle flare, I was still getting that rock solid, smooth power feel.
The wheels brushed the grass just as I gave the stick a healthy tug. I
expected a bounce and then a tailwheel touch, but got a slightly more
nose down attitude instead and no bounce whatsoever. I gave the stick a
BIG tug and got the most perfect wheel landing I have ever seen.
Dang, now I'll be expecting that kind of landing everytime!
As I taxied back to the waiting crowd, I noticed for the first time that
I was fairly drenched in sweat. Hmmmm, and it was only 70 degrees out.
I pulled up onto the concrete pad next to the hangar. I could tell that
my wife was greatly relieved. Me too. Then we took some photos and
popped some cold beers! Woo hoo!!!
I post some pictures on my website Monday.
I do have some comments about the EIS/EFIS combo. They really seem to
work very well, but they have their quirks. One reason that I wasn't
able to monitor the airspeed, altitude, etc as much as I wanted was
because the "Cruise oil pressure" warning was set too high and the EIS
would not leave that display page. That meant that I had to monitor the
engine parameters on the EFIS screen. Yeah, I know that the EIS and
EFIS are supposed to do that for you... but I wanted to see the data
with my own eyes.
Since the EIS was effectively locked on one page, it was actually
somewhat of a distraction. These bugs can be ironed out. It behooves
anyone using this system to really get the darned thing setup BEFORE
flight.
I also got a "Fuel flow too high" on the EFIS each time I put the noise
lever forward. Hmmmm, need to reset that number to a higher value.
So, first flight a success!!! I can't wait to see how fast she'll go
with full throttle... I never had more than about half throttle on this
flight... no kidding! Hmmmm, and it was showing 220 mph IAS at that!
Once again.... WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!
Many Thanks to John Crabtree, Les, Tom, Harry, Fred, Mark, John.... man
I could name a hundred guys but mostly Thanks go to my ever patient
wife, Tammy.
Vince Frazier
3965 Caborn Road
Mount Vernon, IN 47620
812-464-1839 work
812-985-7309 home
F-1H Rocket, N540VF
http://www.usi.edu/science/chemistry/vfrazier/page1.html
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