She Flies!!! HOBBS 2800.0 hrs

On March 16th, 2014, my bird took flight for the first time. I was about a month shy of five years into the project, much longer than I ever anticipated, as I naively thought 3 1/2 years and 2000 hrs would be plenty. The journey to this point proved to be much more challenging than I ever imagined and I can honestly say it is the single greatest accomplishment in my 45 years on this planet. Here are quite a few pics from the big day...

 

 

Getting a quick cockpit brief with my flight advisor, Jim Gray. We discovered that my COM2 wasn't receiving for some reason (still not sure what happened here?) and decided since COM1 was functioning well, we would continue with the flight.

 

Doing my pre-flight, adding some oil. With the oil accumulator holding one quart, I've been filling it to 7 quarts. This has seemed to work good as I haven't seen any oil on the belly yet.

 

Pulling her out into the fresh air...this trip outside the hangar carried some added significance. I felt relaxed, but pretty amp-ed up at this stage. I was prepared, but I wont lie, there were some nerves to contend with as I climbed into the cockpit and closed the canopy, knowing what was about to come next.

 

I had some engine starting problems initially. This was a nice cold morning, temps in the 20's, colder than any of my other engine starts. It kicked over on initial startup, but I didn't feed in enough mixture to keep it running. With the guidance of Jim Gray, he talked me through a little different starting procedure and we got her to kick over no problem.

 

My ground crew looks on as I taxi by. Yes, I am aware everyone will tell you not to invite a large crowd...I had about 8 people. I understand the reasoning behind it, and agree the concept does have merit. At the end of the day, its the test pilot's decision. We're all not built the same. I spent a lifetime playing baseball in front of crowds, some large and televised, I'm personally ok with spectators...are you? You have to make an honest assessment with yourself if it will detract from the task at hand.

 

These were almost all RV guys and I wanted them to experience a first flight for educational purposes. Experiencing one as ground crew can only help when you do your first flight, I didn't have that benefit. They knew the drill and were not a problem at all. They allowed me to focus on what I needed to without being a distraction and helped where needed. I also felt no added pressure to fly...to abort should be an easy decision if things aren't right. That's the key to first flight success, not the size of your ground crew.

 

I contact ground control and taxi out of the Lima hangar row for the first time. Gotta love that view of the Boulder flatirons and the Rockies beyond. I remember thinking this was pretty symbolic, my bird had finally been set free into the wild, released from the confines of the hangar.

 

 

Doing my runup on a picture perfect crisp Colorado morning, it was absolutely ideal for a first flight. Jim and I talked about the importance of making sure the prop would cycle. My first two attempts at 1700 RPM yielded nothing, the prop didn't cycle...I was thinking I may have to abort.

 

I then ran it up to 2000 RPM and it finally cycled. I don't know if it was because it was the first time and I needed to get some oil into the prop or if I actually needed the extra RPM? Either way, I cycled it three times successfully...all was good. I went through the remainder of my checklist and then set it up a little richer than I normally would to keep CHT's down. Running a little rich we lose some power, luckily we don't need maximum takeoff performance in an RV so we have performance to burn.

 

There's an old saying among test pilots that goes something like this. You lose half your IQ when the canopy closes. Shoot, that didn't happen to me I thought with a puffed out chest, I closed that canopy and was doing just fine, thank you. My radio calls were good, the runup was good, nerves were good and IQ was fully intact. Then I started my takeoff roll...unknown to me at the time, but my IQ was inversely proportional to my airspeed. As airspeed increased, my IQ rapidly decreased. I was reduced to a slobbering infant five minutes later, forgetting how to even speak on the radio.

 

To note, I forgot to check the airspeed alive, prop RPM (for a possible overspeed), engine instruments in the green...none of that registered as I just focused primarily on flying the airplane and holding the centerline. I'm not proud of this airmanship, but I wanted to bring it to light as I've been honest about all of my mistakes throughout the build...this is so you do better.

 

The takeoff is not that difficult, even in a taildragger, bring the power in slowly and you don't need a whole lot of right rudder...she tracked very well on the centerline...I could've and should've been monitoring my instruments better. Hand slapped, lesson learned.

 

 

The engine and prop were smooth as silk and she accelerated nicely. I let her fly off the ground when she wanted...held her there for a brief moment while I did a quick wing wag left and right to make sure I had control authority and then gradually started my shallow climb. With the 9000' runway, I could have easily aborted right here and put her back down, but everything looked good to climb...and so I did.

 

 

Off I go into the wild blue yonder, she is airborne for the first time and it was damned glorious! I wanted to whoop and holler, but knew better to concentrate on the task at hand. After I got up to pattern altitude in short order, I kept climbing to my orbit above the airport at 7000' (500' above pattern altitude). It was then that I realized I had the mixture too lean...as my CHT's were at 450 deg F and climbing! I was so busy flying the plane, I hadn't noticed them sooner...again, poor situational awareness on my part.

 

I had a feeling of nausea in my stomach as I thought about glazing the cylinders of my expensive engine. The first thing that crossed my mind was abort the flight...get her on the ground...time to land. Then, the fog lifted and my brain finally started to work again...breathe...enrich the mixture stupid! Sure enough...I put her to full rich and the temps slowly creeped down to 350-375 degs...#2 was a little hotter than the other three, but I'll deal with that later.

 

All the while this was happening, I had an overzealous controller that was contacting me every two minutes giving me traffic advisories and waiting for me to respond with positive contact. For the life of me, I couldn't grasp why an aircraft taking off 1500 feet directly below me was a factor? She knew it was a first flight and I had a heavy workload inside the cockpit. She could've made my life much easier on me, but instead showed me who was boss. In fact, the next controller didn't contact me once...for comparison.

 

Let me paint the picture...I'm battling my intercom, which is common on first flights...the volume was fine on the ground, but with added flight noise, it was too low so I couldn't hear her calls initially. Then it was the squelch acting whacky...the aforementioned CHT's going crazy...and oh, by the way, fly the airplane in a 165 kt orbit! That's fast if you haven't done it before. It was a heavy initial workload in the cockpit that I admit I didn't handle well. I estimate it was a good ten minutes into the flight before I finally caught up to my environment and settled in. I was so far behind the airplane in those first ten minutes, I could've been flying chase. On your first flight, be ready for this. 

 

After that it was much more uneventful as I circled around and around for about 40 minutes at WOT and 2500 RPM. You want to run your engine hard during break-in. Even though things had calmed down, I did, however, realize that I had no airspeed indication other than my GPS ground speed. Holy moly I thought, I had never landed an airplane with no ASI...no instructor ever covered one to test me (a good exercise).

 

Here I am, in an airplane I built, on a first flight...one that I had a whopping 5.5 hrs flying experience, about to land without an airspeed indicator. A little butt pucker factor settled in, all pilots know what this feels like. You can't pull over to the side of the road, hand the controls to someone else, or otherwise hit 'pause' so you have time to think about it. Decisions need to be made in real time. Its somewhat unique to flying, and part of what I love about it. 

 

I was going to call Jim on the handheld and ask his advice, but I somehow knew his response...do the best you can, use your GPS speed, keep it fast on approach and bleed off speed over that long 9000' runway. I skipped the call and did exactly that. At the end of the day, you are the test pilot, the PIC, you may be faced with a scenario like this...be prepared.

 

It certainly wasn't my best landing, I flared too high and bounced her in a little bit, but I was just happy to be back down in one piece. Style points will come later!

 

As I contacted ground control and taxied back...I wasn't smiling. Amazingly enough, the "RV grin" had not yet formed on my lips. I think I was still trying to wrap my head around the reality of what just happened...it hadn't registered in my brain yet.

 

This was the first picture snapped by John Armstrong as I finally cracked open the canopy. Although the RV grin still hasn't emerged...you can see it beginning to form. I think I just took a deep breath and sat there for a few minutes taking it all in....did that really just happen? What an experience!!! A once-in-a-lifetime experience quite frankly. This was something I wont ever forget, to fly an airplane that I created from a pile of aluminum over the course of five years. This comes from a guy that has rode bulls in a rodeo and played baseball at Coors Field in my younger years. The trials and tribulations it took to get to this point are hard to grasp for even me...blood, sweat, tears and money were all key players in this high stakes game of human flight. Its quite amazing, words just don't do it justice....and sweetly, it was all worth it.

 

Mr. Gray gives me a congratulatory handshake as Brian Beatty looks on.

 

When my foot hit the ground, it then became complete in my mind...the exclamation point at the end of the sentence, I had actually done it. Mission accomplished!

 

No flight is complete without the pilot doing some hangar flying. I am holding a bottle of Scotch that Mr. John Armstrong graciously presented to me as a first flight gift, as I talk about the flight...and smile. 

 

We pulled the cowl, looked everything over...no leaks. I had a brown spot on the cowl heat shield where the heater muff was either touching or close to the cowl. I also seen a little dab of anti-seize that had dripped off the exhaust joint onto the cowl. Other than that, no squawks under the cowl.

 

It was now time for some celebration! I opened my special edition bottle of Stranahan's whiskey that I had saved for this occasion. It was whiskey made in a wine barrel called "Snowflake Mt. Silverbell"...they only make it twice a year, and each barrel is unique, hence the name "snowflake". It seemed fitting that such a unique bottle of whiskey be used for an event such as this. Its very hard to get and rather expensive. And oh boy, did it go down my throat nice and smooth, the sweet feeling of a job well done warming me...or was that just the whiskey?

 

 

I uploaded the takeoff video...but I think the landing video is too long as it wouldn't upload for some reason.

 

This ends the construction phase of my blog, although there are still odds and ends to do. Thanks for following along all these years, I am honored if you found something useful from your visits. I will now document the phase I flight test period so you can see what its like to fly this puppy! Now the fun begins!

 

Thanks to Van's aircraft...and Van himself, for creating such a wonderful flying airplane and well put together kit. I can't imagine the general aviation world right now without Van's aircraft in it.

 

You don't build one of these alone. I had a lot of help along the way: fellow builders, VAF forum posts, Jason Beaver's excellent blog to reference, Dan Checkoway who answered all of my rookie questions with long detailed emails before I took the plunge. He set the standard for the blog sites in existence today and was a great inspiration when I was getting started. Joe Blank for giving me the ride in the factory RV8A that triggered my empennage purchase five years ago. There are many more--too many to name, but thanks all the same. I plan to pay it forward.

 

Thanks to my extended ground crew: Scott Mills for his countless Greeley breakfast runs in his RV9A to keep me inspired over the years, Sean Blair and John Armstrong for driving 120 miles round trip to be part of this and always being great sounding boards for ideas, Sean Thomas for his awesome flight video work and help around the hangar, Brian Beatty for being the first one to shake my hand when I emerged victorious from the cockpit and Diana for always being a great supporter and cheerleader. Lastly, Jim Gray, who donated his valuable time and RV experience to help me prepare for the flight, he was instrumental in its success and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

 

Thanks to my wonderful girlfriend Sheryl, for keeping things in order at home while I spent long hours with the 'mistress' and completely neglected the house and her. I wouldn't have finished when I did without her help, it was a team effort. The last few months weren't easy on her and I'm glad she stuck with me.

 

Thanks to both my parents, Aurore and Ron Sr., for giving me the life skills to achieve my dreams. I couldn't have done this without their upbringing. Special thanks to my Dad, who came out multiple times over the years from his home in Washington state to help me (and we worked hard when he did) at key times on the project. My dream of building and flying my own airplane was borne out of his passion for this very same dream. We did it Pop!!