My last flight was a darn good one! And maybe, just maybe, the best flight yet. Let me explain, I was about halfway through my flight and had just crossed over the 17 hr tach time threshold when I noticed my CHT's drop about 30 degs. Now of course, OAT, mixture and altitude influence your CHT's...but I'm thinking nothing changed significantly with those variables to explain the rather noticeable drop in CHT's. If you've been following along...what that possibly could mean, is that I may have FINALLY broken-in the engine! If so, that will be a huge relief.
Give me another flight to verify before I declare victory. I also want to pull the bottom plugs to see if they are dry...which I've read is a tell-tale sign you are indeed broken-in. For now, though, I am pretty excited about this latest development.
The good news didn't stop there. I spent some time the day before playing around with my aileron rigging to get a handle on this heavy left wing issue. Previously I had synced the flaps...they were about 0.3 degs different from each other, they are now identical according to my digital level. That didn't fix my heavy wing...but maybe helped ever so slightly.
Feeling comfortable about my flap rigging, I turned my attention to the ailerons. Essentially what I did was use the flaps as my zero datum and align the ailerons up with them. This is not how vans says to do it...but I am going off script a little bit here. After this flight, I can tell you this didn't solve the problem completely...but we are now in the ballpark, it was much better on this flight. I will tweak it a little more in due time.
Moving on...I did my AoA calibration. The process is you just bring up the in the half screen flight setup menu on SkyView and then do down through the step by step list. You start by oscillating the plane through 5 degs climb and 5 degs descent...do this four cycles. Then, perform a stall...and push the stall button once you are done. The plane will be able to determine the highest AoA during the sequence and records that as your critical AoA. Nothing to it...I performed three stalls and pushed save. Unfortunately, my slow 45kt stall speed was verified. Still need to address the slow ASI issue.
One of the things on my to-do list is to calibrate my fuel tank sensors now that I have them wired properly. Since draining tanks into a gas can in the hangar is pretty much a pain in my ass...I decided to run the left tank dry in flight. I personally feel, you should have an idea how your plane behaves when it runs out of fuel...if for nothing more, to not be surprised when it happens. Its all part of getting to know every nuance about your airplane, which will make you safer.
I had intended to do this at the outset and didn't add fuel to the left tank during fillup. I had a pretty good idea how much fuel I had in the left tank and knew approximately (by time and fuel burn) when to expect it...but then I got distracted with something else. Here I am, flying along, fat, dumb and happy...and bam, it goes dry. The engine starts faltering and backfiring...that got my attention...pronto! Fuel pump on...switch tanks...and after a couple more seconds of the same behavior, it smoothed out. The engine never shut down and the whole sequence was about 5 seconds total I would guess. Another item checked off the list.
Every great flight has to end with a great landing. Sure enough, I finally greased a landing...I know, it took a while. But this one was as smooth as butter. One of those landings where the only reason you know you're on the ground is because the altimeter stopped moving. ;) Hopefully that will lead to more good ones in the future as I get a better feel for her...we are bonding, the mistress and I.
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