Joshua's RV-9A Project

Not much going at work, so amidst the crazy heat, I took the day to play at the airport.  Turned out to be a big day for the project, in a low-key way.

Stopped off at the hangar after a meeting, and took care of a couple items: mounting the wingtips since the glass tape from yesterday had cured, connecting the wingtip lights, and then installing the tip lenses.

After a bit, my hangarmate arrived.  He’s an A&P and had agreed to give my FWF install a thorough look before attempting to start it up.  After several visitors from around the airport, we got down to business.  The only areas of concern he noted:

• The plastic brake line tubing on the lower baffle tie rods…will it take the heat?  It’s something I’ve seen pretty commonly on other build logs, so I assume it’ll be ok.  An item to watch.  He has had success with .063″ safety wire looped with washers on each end.
• The fuel flow transducer, as it’s not mounted level.  Another place to watch and check for accuracy.  Airflow Performance recommends installing it in the line between the fuel servo and the distribution spider, and I had a heck of a time finding a place to put it.  This installation is copied from another builder (though of course I can’t remember who, now).  He installed in the tunnel inside, and doesn’t have any problems with inaccurate readings with the boost pump on.

With the inspection complete, there wasn’t much left to do but kick the tires & light the fires.  We spun the engine with the starter until the EFIS registered oil pressure, then installed and torqued the top plugs.  After talking through procedures and briefing the test, we rolled the plane outside, tied it to the truck, and lit it off.  It caught on the first try, but I wasn’t quite fast enough getting the purge control in.  Hit it again, and faster this time, and it stayed running.  Eyes like a hawk on the oil pressure…60+ psi, perfect.  Ran it up to 1500 RPM, a quick mag check, slowly brought the RPM back down above idle, quickly flipped both ignitions off, then on, to verify that they did indeed shut down.  Throttle to idle and shut down.  The EFIS recorded .03 of hobbs time, or just under 2 minutes.  Engine start successful, and no leaks (yet).

Pushed her back in the hangar and gave everything a good check over.  Read the dipstick to establish a baseline (reads @ 8 quarts) to measure oil consumption.  Wiped up the oil that sprayed over various things, a combination of oil blown out of the exhaust (some of the preservative oil seeped into the exhaust system), and leftover drips from installing the bottom plugs.  Downloaded the data log from the EFIS for analysis and/or recordkeeping.

Talked about where to get pitot-static/transponder check/weighing done.

Measured the N numbers…they measure 2 31/32″ high…1/32″ short of the requirement.  Problem for the DAR?  Tom Berge was very specific that I’d have problems if they were not 3″.  Perhaps safer to strip ‘em off and order new ones…  I should have measured them more carefully before applying them.

Headed back to the house early for dinner, and to escape the heat.

Too few photos of the day, because I forgot to charge my phone last night and it died early on.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012 at 1:20 am and is filed under Endgame. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.