---------------------------------------------------------- Rocket-List Digest Archive --- Total Messages Posted Sat 10/09/04: 3 ---------------------------------------------------------- Today's Message Index: ---------------------- 1. 12:48 AM - Re: Crazy Horse Flies! (Jeff Point) 2. 05:45 AM - Re: Crazy Horse Flies! (jrstone) 3. 06:44 AM - Re: Crazy Horse Flies! (George Steube) ________________________________ Message 1 _____________________________________ Time: 12:48:22 AM PST US From: Jeff Point Subject: Re: Rocket-List: Crazy Horse Flies! --> Rocket-List message posted by: Jeff Point Congratulations Vince! One observation about your EIS problems, regarding the fuel flow. What is the flowscan calibration setting? I started with the recommended 200, which was way to high. I am still tweaking it, but around 170 seems to be a better setting, meaning my flow readings were around 15% high to begin with. Just something to look at. Jeff Point Milwaukee WI RV-6 and future HRII (someday...) > > ________________________________ Message 2 _____________________________________ Time: 05:45:25 AM PST US From: "jrstone" Subject: Re: Rocket-List: Crazy Horse Flies! --> Rocket-List message posted by: "jrstone" Congrats Vince!! Jim Stone do not archive ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frazier, Vincent A" Subject: Rocket-List: Crazy Horse Flies! > --> Rocket-List message posted by: "Frazier, Vincent A" > > 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 3 _____________________________________ Time: 06:44:43 AM PST US From: "George Steube" Subject: RE: Rocket-List: Crazy Horse Flies! --> Rocket-List message posted by: "George Steube" Vince, Congratulations on your first flight. I have a couple of question about your EFIS setup. Do you have the dual GRT EFIS and engine monitor? If not whose engine monitor do you have? I look forward to hearing your evaluation of the EFIS setup. George -----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" 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