Joshua's RV-9A Project

Headed off to the airport with Allison tonight, to calibrate the fuel tanks.  We pulled the plane over to the pumps, and she sat in the cabin and pushed buttons while I added fuel, 2 gallons at a time, to each tank.  I also wanted to calibrate the dipstick tube that I made at the same time, but it seems the diameter is too large — the tube won’t hold the fuel.  I’ll have to find a smaller tube and redo that part later.  30 gallons of fuel later (15 in each tank; the gauges stop increasing at around 14.2 gallons), the tanks were calibrated.

Rather than tow the plane back to the hangar with an extra 180 lbs on board, I had Allison move over to the passenger seat, and I fired up the engine and taxied back.  First, we went down to the run-up area and did a run-up, mag check, and static RPM check.  Back to the hangar, I tried an idle RPM check before shutting down, but the engine wanted to quit somewhere south of 500 RPM, so it looks like I’ll have to adjust the idle stop up a little higher.  Allison thought taxiing around the airport was neat, though it was a bit loud for her.

Before putting the plane back inside, I parked it in front of the hangar and took a series of photos that I’ll send in as the official inspection packet photos, along with some “glamour shots”…

Back in the hangar, we removed the cowling, wing inspection panels, and tail fairing.  Later this week, I’ll get the rest of the fairings & panels removed again.  I looked over the FWF for leaks or chafing and found neither.

I put together the rest of the inspection packet tonight, and printed off a shipping label; hopefully I’ll talk to the DAR tomorrow and ship off the packet from the post office at work.