N523RV - Tales of a Flying RV-9A

FlightAware

2008-08-29T20:34:00.002-05:00

www.flightaware.com - This is a pretty popular (and free) website where you can track airplane flights. It's usually delayed by 15mins or so and typically has only shown IFR flights. Tonight after I returned home from Moline, I had an email from guy here local who said he saw me on FA. Sure enough, my tracks up and back were there! You can see it here.

Coincidentally, I was at the airport tonight getting some stuff when I saw an RV practicing an engine out over the end of 17. On his rollout, I recogonized the paint scheme and the engine sound. It was Nate Larson in his Subie powered RV-9A. Nate also happens to be a supervisor at Kansas City Center. I mentioned my tracks on FA and he said that flight advisory flights would probably start showing up more.

Here is an interesting link that will allow you to see all flights of a certain type. You can type in "RV" and get all the RV flights. Tonight I found two RV-6's flying. http://flightaware.com/live/aircrafttype

Gianna's first ride and the autopilot works!

2008-08-29T15:20:00.002-05:00

A big strom blew through on Thursday evening, so I didn't get a chance to get up and go flying like I had hoped. This morning we got up and made it to the airport around 9am. The plane was still filthy from the dust at Oshkosh, so we washed it quick and then I headed over to K81 for gas and then off to MLI to pick up Gianna, our grand-daughter. Two hours from here to there gave me time to play with the auto-pilot. I tweaked the sensitivity settings and the torque settings a little and then it was doing its job darn near perfectly. Heading was dead on and altitude didn't vary by more then 10ft either way. Of course, this was in smooth air. All by myself, listening to Dave Matthew Band and letting the autopilot fly.

Once I arrived in MLI, took a break and then loaded Gianna in the plane. I didn't have time to rig up the car seat in the baggage area, so Sandi had to stay home so I could rig the car seat up front. This was her first airplane ride and we weren't sure how this would go. Fortunately, her parents had talked her up about the plane ride so she was ready to go. At first, she even was cool with the headset. Between the headset and the Wiggles DVD, she was pretty entertained for the first 45mins or so and then got restless and took off the headset. The airplane noise didn't bother her, so I didn't force it back on. About 30mins prior to landing, she fell asleep.

The trip home was much improved having the AP do the flying. Trying to keep track of her doin's and fly the plane at the same time would have been tough. The descent down into Ottawa got a big rough. The AP was doing an OK job. I might need to turn up the sensitivity some and maybe the torque.

Autopilot Install - Part IV

2008-08-27T20:39:00.002-05:00

The post installation check is complete and the plane is ready to fly. The post install basically consists of powering up the unit and going through the settings pages (of which TT gives you little to no guidance). Then you engage the AP and tell it to turn you... and hope the aileron goes the right way. :-) It did... and same with altitude hold. So everything looks good. Tomorrow, Sandi and I are going to fly over to K81 to get some fuel and dinner and test the AP. On Friday, I'm headed to MLI, so I'll have a couple of hours x-country to see how well it performs.

I'm looking for input from anyone who has a TT AP in their RV-9 and what settings they are using.

PS - Next project is an APRS system.... all the rage with RV guys now.... stay tuned.

Autopilot install - Part III

2008-08-27T07:04:00.002-05:00

3rd trip to the hangar this week to work on the AP install. I managed to finish the installation tonight. I remounted the pitch servo. I shortened the push rod tub by 1/2" to account for my mis-mounting of the bracket. After some tweaking of the length and playing with various spacers I was able to get it into position without risk of binding with anything. I bolted everything in place and safety wired the servo in place. Next I crimped pins on the wires and assembled the db-9 connector.

The essentially completes the physical installation of the autopilot. I did a continuity check on all of the wires to make sure I didn't have any pins crossed or any shorts and everything came out perfect. I'll head back out to the airport to do the post-installation check (on the ground) and then put all the covers back in place for a test flight.

Autopilot install - Part II

2008-08-26T06:54:00.002-05:00

So after a long day in the hangar on Saturday, I spent some time on Monday poking around on the Internet looking at other TTAP installs on RV's. That is when I noticed that my install was slightly different than the other RV-9's I saw. Turns out, the drawings that TT sent with my AP were for the RV-7/10 (which I had noticed) but there are different drawings for the RV-9! I downloaded and printed the right drawings from TT's site. I also called TT to ask them about my pitch servo installation bracket. Zach said it should be fine to shorten the pushrod tube as long as there isn't any interference. I also asked him about how the washers are supposed to be used. See my post here. Told them they needed to update their drawings to reflect this information.

So back out to the airport I went after work. I disconnected and then reconnected the wing servo pushrod per the RV-9 drawings. :-) I also installed the pitot/static fittings and tubing to the new control head. The fitting locations are then ADI-II are in a different location than on the plain ADI, so it required new tubing.

Tonight I'll head back out and work on the pitch servo installation. Going to drag Sandi out with me to help double-check my wiring by doing continuity checks from each end of the wires.

Autopilot Installation begins...

2008-08-24T19:07:00.002-05:00

The AP arrived on Saturday morning. Two servo's, control head and a box of hardware. Headed out to the airport early Sunday morning to get started. It took about 3 hours to get the wing servo installed. There are no installation instructions, only a few drawings. The drawings don't indicate what the bolt/washer setup is supposed to be, so I did what I could. I was also able to get the wiring at the servo completed.

Home for lunch and a siesta!

Back at the airport, I pulled off the baggage wall to start on the pitch servo. The bracket was installed several years ago when I built the fuselage, so it was just matter of bolting it on. Then I played with the servo push rod and it just didn't look right. It was too long and the servo arm was going over-center. Weird! The drawing called for the pushrod to be 5.75", which I had right. The bracket is supposed to be 2.8", so I checked.... it's 2.25 inches. UGH! I pulled the servo back off and put it aside while I figure out what to do. I can remove the bracket and shift it, would require drilling out 7 rivets. I'm going to call TT tomorrow and see if I can just shorten the pushrod arm instead as long as I don't have any binding or interference.

Next I started tackling all of the wiring at the control unit. I used a DB-25 connector with crimp-on pins instead of the solder-on that TT provides. A lot easier to deal with. All of the wires were run and marked, so it was just a matter of trimming to length, crimp on the pins and insert into the connector. I had to remove the wire going from the Garmin 496 to the data logger so I could feed the AP.

With the wires all done, I moved to installing the control head in the panel. The ADI Pilot II has two knobs on the face, so I had to create the cut-out for the left knob. I put to unit in place and screwed it in. Looks good! The afternoon accounted for another 3 hours or so.

Once I get the pitch servo situation figured out, I'll terminate the wires and I'll be ready to test the unit. I need to be ready to go by Friday as I'm headed up to pick up the grand-daughter in Moline, IL.

Prepping for IFR Ticket

2008-08-13T09:04:00.002-05:00

It's about time I get my IFR ticket. It will help with insurance, make me a better pilot, give Sandi a little more comfort when flying close to clouds and allow us to get out and go places when layers of clouds keep us pinned down. My personal minimums will be quite high. I have no desire nor the intention of spending hours flying in the clouds. There are many flyable days that we could get somewhere but are stopped by a cloud deck at 1500 ft that is maybe 500ft thick and VFR on top. On long trips, flight planning is an issue... we can get there but can we get back?

The airplane is mostly ready for IFR work. I need a pitot/static check, transponder check. I need to install the GPS/NAV annunciator. I've ordered a TruTrack ADI Pilot II to replace my straight ADI. This will give me a 2-axis autopilot. AP is nearly a requirement when doing IFR in an RV.

Pilot readiness: I started on my written IFR about a year ago but didn't finish, so I've started studying again. I have the ASA DVD's/books along with several other IFR study books. I want to get it knocked out in the next month.

I have an instructor lined up. His name is Andy. He's a controller at Kansas City Center, he's building an RV-7 and even better, he's moving to Ottawa where we live! He can't get started until mid-September which will probably work out OK. Give me time to get the plane ready and get my written done or mostly done.

Oshkosh - Day 8 - August 2nd

2008-08-02T12:05:00.003-05:00

On our way home today. Writing this from the in-laws place in Moline, IL. We got up this morning and just sort slowly got things packed up. Took our two boxes + our tent to the Fedex tent to ship back home. $63 Not bad, saved us a lot of room and lots of weight. We'll be heading out of here shortly for the last 2 hour leg home. Weather is gorgeous today!

Update:

We made it home... landed around 6:00pm in Ottawa. Weather was decent in Illinois...it was HOT and HAZY the closer we got to home. Northeast of KC, it was so hazy we couldn't see anything ahead of us about all we could see was down. There was some cloud buildup over KC and we weren't sure how far south it extended so we decided to drop down to get below it... bad idea of sorts. It was HOT, a bit bumpy, and just as hazy. Turns out the clouds cleared up after 20 miles but it was pointless to climb back up at that point. We quickly unloaded the car and headed home.

Oshkosh - Day 4 - July 29

2008-07-29T07:44:00.000-05:00

We were scheduled to volunteer again as Aircraft Greeters in the North 40 but they had filled up the spaces and didn't need us. So we spent the day reading by the tent and did go do some walking around the show grounds. We watched the airshow from our tent instead of walking up to the flight line.

Oshkosh - Day 3 - July 28

2008-07-28T18:51:00.003-05:00

Sitting here at our tent in Homebuilt camping with Foreigner providing background music. A few planes are departing and a few are arriving....

Our first morning of volunteering went OK. We volunteered to be Aircraft Greeters which means we hang out in General Aviation Camping and welcome pilots to the show and provide them with the info they need. 3 hour shift... it was a bit slow but Sandi had a little excitement when a gentleman gashed his head open on the corner of his elevator when tying down the tale. After our volunteering, we headed to our campsite for lunch and a siesta. Wandered down to the flightline at 12:30 to drop off our chairs and then headed over to the bendor buildings.

Nobody is doing show discounts, at least not anyone we are intersted in.

Watched the airshow from Homebuilders HQ deck. Great show! Wandered down to the Forgeigner concert after the show and stayed for a couple of songs and then headed back to campsite. It was hot and standing room only. :-)

Oshkosh - Day 2 - July 27

2008-07-28T07:06:00.002-05:00

Day 2 was spent hanging out on the flight line watching arrivals. After our $15 breakfast we parked it along 36 right runway. Winds were out of the west, so most traffic was landing on 27 but that gave us the opportunity to watch peoples cross-wind landing skills. The other thing that absolutely flabbergasts us is the number of pilots arrving that obviously haven't ready (or comprehend) the NOTAM. After awhile we headed back to the tent for a bit and then over to the flight line on runway 27. Had a $15 late lunch and back to the tent for a nap under the plane. Next we headed over to Target and Pick-n-Save to get groceries as $15 meals will kill us. I paid $2.75 for a bottle of water on the field and $.50 over at Target and a brat stand. Ugh! For evening entertainment we headed to Theatre in the Woods to watch an "aviation humorist" who was OK but not that funny. Then Cathe Fish spoke about the 'lighter side of fligh instructing' which was as funny as the humorist.

We seem to have issues with air mattresses. Last year we borrowed one from my mom and it wouldn't hold air for more than a night or two. This year we bought a "guaranteed not to leak" one... that also leaks. Sandi cracked me up this morning when we woke up and said we were like to hot dogs in a bun! If we sleep next to each other it kinda folds up on us. :-) Oh well....

Oshkosh - Day 1 - July 26th

2008-07-26T20:00:00.006-05:00

We've arrived! Our departure was a bit delayed this morning. We woke up to lots of FOG, couldn't see across the front yard. We waited and waited. Things weren't looking good. Finally the clouds parted enough that we thought we could get up on top. Weather was clear to our north it was just local we had to deal with. We drugged the puppy and headed to the airport. We departed and was easily able to get up through the cloud deck and on top of a densely scattered cloud layer. We pointed NE towards Moline, IL. Arrived at Moline (spoke with Larry at Quad City Approach.. he's a fellow Geocacher). Dropped the puppy off and passed on the $6.58/gal fuel and headed for SFY 40 miles NE and paid $4.70/gal. Arrival at Oshkosh was smooth as could be. Very little traffic. We are parked in row 302 towards the back. We registered and then went over to Friar Tucks for some dinner. We are now sitting next to our plane surfing the internet at Sprint Speed! Sprint has EVDO Rev A coverage this year! WOOHOO!

Oshkosh 2008 Bound

2008-07-25T19:00:00.001-05:00

Sandi and I are headed to Oshkosh tomorrow morning. Small chance of thunderstorms here in KC tomorrow but I think we'll be able to get out. Stopping over in Moline, IL to drop off our puppy at the grandsitters. :-)

WWII Pilot gets an RV ride for his 86th Birthday

2008-07-16T16:55:00.004-05:00

This morning I had the privelege of giving an RV ride to John Vogl. He is a resident of Sunrise Senior Living where Sandi works. His wife Cam wanted to get John a ride an airplane for his birthday and she knew that Sandi and I were pilots and had our own plane. Of course, any reason to take someone for an RV ride is a good one. Sandi's boss turned it into a big PR stunt and had the local media out for the flight.

The list of airplanes that John has flown is long and enviable. Starting out with a Stearman PT-17 and includes the P-51 Mustang. The flight was great, I handed over the controls right after take-off and took them back on short final. In the 30 minutes of flying we did, we didn't spend more than a few minutes in level flight. He was having a blast doing all sorts of turning and banking, climbing, descending just having a great time.

Kansas City Star Video

KCTV5

Ahh.... the aerial commute!

2008-07-15T07:44:00.003-05:00

Two days in a row... we've "aerially commuted" to work. By car, our commute is 48miles. By air it is 35. We have a commuter car parked at the executive airport so we just land, throw on the canopy cover and hop in the car. Is it faster.... nope... adds 15mins to our commute. Is it cheaper... nope... but not by much maybe depending on how you look at it. Is is stress free.. YES! Do we fight traffic? NO! Is it cool?? YES!

We'll be commuting again tomorrow and I'll be giving that RV ride to an old WWII pilot.

Local Flying

2008-07-13T20:54:00.003-05:00

Been getting in the plane here and there. We flew to work a couple of weeks ago, which was kinda nice. :-) This morning we flew down to KHUT for lunch. They have a really nice lunch buffet at the Airport Steakhouse Restaurant on the field. It's about an hour each way. The Kansas Flint Hills were incredible... so green.. and it's JULY! Of course we didn't have the camera with us. We'll be flying to work in the morning and also on Weds when I'm to give a ride to retired WWII military pilot celebrating his 86th birthday. Should be fun!

TEX '08 Flyin

2008-05-17T18:20:00.004-05:00

Sandi and I departed OWI at 6am and met up with Bill and Tab in the air and headed south. Between ride down, great sunrise, a little tail wind. Arrived at Midway Regl. at 8:30am. Not bad.. KC to DFW in 2.5 hours. We sat on the flight line and watched planes arrive for awhile and then walked around looking at planes. At 12:00 they started serving the BBQ. We dinked around a little longer and then headed out. We headed over to T13 for $3.65 gas. Airnav guaranteed. 3800 grass strip. Made Bill land first (tailwheel) to give a runway report and we came in behind him. It was true... $3.65/gal! Another RV was there and just finished filling up. Bill started topping off his tanks but the pump quit pumping gas. He ran his card through again and got another 3 gals to finish filling the tank. I pulled up, got 3 gallons and the tank went dry! DAMN! We had to head north to Mesquite to get $4.15/gal gas. Ride home was OK.. typical afternoon cloud build-up. Had to go to 12.5k to get over the clouds at Tulsa then shot down to 7.5k to get under the clouds as we weren't sure what was ahead. Of course the ride at 7.5k was bumpy. Landed, unloaded and headed up. Put 6hrs exactly on the hobbs.

Taxi'ng in for cheap gas!

Notice.... all unpainted airplanes in line for cheap gas!

ELT Education

2008-04-12T13:37:00.003-05:00

As part of the annual inspection, I need to test the ELT. I replacd both the unit batteries and the remote batteries. I noticed that when I tried to set off the ELT from the remote, it wouldn't come on. It worked fine when I did it from the unit itself. I got to talking with our local IA and mentioned it. Turns out, that I did not have the main unit in "Arm" mode. The AK unit has 3 positions: Up = Test, Middle = Off and Down = ARM. I had it in the middle position... and I think it has always been that way. That was good to discover! I also found out you are supposed to check the g-force sensor each year at annual as well. You remove the unit, arm it and then smack it against your hand (hard) and it should go off. After doing this, you put the switch in the OFF position and preset the reset button, then back to ARM once it is back in the plane. Good education! Go check your ELT switch to make sure it's armed!!

2nd Annual Condition Inspection (Complete!)

2008-03-08T16:58:00.006-06:00

It's been just over 2 years since first flight and it's time for the 2nd annual condition inspection to begin. Of course, is it February in Kansas which means it's COLD. Nat and I went out this afternoon as in a couple of hours was able to remove all of the inspection covers, seat trays, baggage wall and cowling. Tomorrow we'll head back out and start the inspection.

Sunday - March 9

Nat and I headed back out to the airport this morning. I did the inspection on the tail pieces and wings. I pulled off the alternator and started putting the new one on. I need a few nuts in order to complete it. Next up will be the interior inspection and engine inspection.

Wednesday - March 12

Received my Van's shipment, so I replaced the rear position light. Lubricated all of the rod-end bearings with LPS-2. Mounted up the new alternator. At this point I'm done with the tail/wing/fuse inspection. Need to do the interior inspection and the engine compartment. Hope to finish up this weekend.

Squawks so far:

Tail position light burnt out
Replacing alternator

Sunday - March 23

Getting things put back together. Tail light has been replaced, new alternator installed. Everything is buttoned back up except the cowl area. A couple more hours at the airport and we'll be back in business for another year.

Friday - April 11

It took several weeks longer than I planned but the annual is now complete! I buttoned up the cowl and put the interior back together after work in preparation for an EAA meeting on Saturday.

Status Report

2008-02-10T15:21:00.000-06:00

Yea, the blog has been pretty quiet. We've done very little flying. A few small hops locally but nothing major to report. The airplane needs an annual condition inspection this month, so I'll be getting started on that soon.

Matt Burch dropped me an email this week wanting some assistance with hanging his engine, so I went over this morning to help him out. Didn't take us very long at all and things went pretty smoothly.

Insurance for '08 dropped another $150. ~$1775 for $75k hull through AIG. I have just over 300 hrs TT with no instrument ticket. They tell me the only thing that will make it drop a lot will be to get my IFR.

Giving the first RV ride....

2007-10-11T20:15:00.000-05:00

Way back in August, I recieved an email from Don who was getting geared up to build an RV-9. He and his wife live down in Florida and were going to be in the area and wanted to see our RV. Don is a crewchief for an SCCA road race team and was in Topeka, KS for the National Championship Runoffs at Heartland Park. Topeka is just a short 15min flight from my home base, so we hooked up Thursday after work and went for a flight. As most people, Don was very impressed with the handling qualities of the RV. We got in about .4hrs of flying time and flew right over the race track on our right base to runway 03 at KFOE. I do believe the hook is full set now... no turning back. :-)

Thanks Don!

Dinner flight

2007-10-09T07:42:00.000-05:00

I'd like to say I've been negligent in updating the website but the sad truth is we haven't been flying much at all. The weather hasn't been very cooperative and work has interfered on the weekends that were nice. We managed to get a nice dinner flight up to Topeka, KS Monday night however. Ray (RV-10) took one of our work vendors with him and Sandi and I met them up there. Restaurant was closed, so we had to take the courtesy car into town to eat. Beautiful flight home just after the sun set and finished with a beautiful night landing. I can tell you that I am very rusty having not flown in a month. My radio communications were bad and my first landing at Topeka was ugly. I landed smoothly enough but flared way to high.

International Flying

2007-08-13T11:04:00.000-05:00

No... not quite what you think. We have started hosting foreign exchange students again. This year we have two boys: Nat from Thailand and Laurenz from Germany. Sunday morning we headed out to the airport to give them their first rides in the RV and in a small airplane. I spent about 30 mins with each of them, flying over the high school they will be attending and over our house. I also climbed up to 4k and let them fly around a little bit. Finished up showing them how an airplane stalls, does steep turns and finally a low approach down the runway. While I was up with Nat, I heard Ray (RV-10 N519RV) flying around, so he came down to Ottawa and we flew side by side for a few minutes. He had Brian and his wife Bonnie in the plane.

Both boys had a great time and really enjoyed it.

Oshkosh - Are we home yet?

2007-08-02T09:42:00.000-05:00

Our trip to and visit in Illinois was fun. We got to spend time with Sandi's family including her Granddaughter. We got up Sunday morning and checked weather...again. Still looking kinda yucky over and around Ottawa. So we spent the day visiting some more. Around 4pm we decided to jump in the plane and try to make it home. We got about 60 miles SW of MLI and we were at 2000 feet to stay below a cloud deck. Looking ahead all we saw were clouds, haze and MUCK!! After a brief discussion, we decided to turn around and head back to Moline. Sandi called her parents as we were on final to come get us. We spent the evening watching the weather closely...looking for any opportunity to slip out. No luck. We spent the night again. Did a little geocaching Monday morning and spent MORE time with the family before jumping in the plane around 3:30pm to take another shot at getting home. We climbed to 6500 feet and were cruising along at about 167 knots. Before long, we were about 45 miles from home. About then, we ran into a little cloud deck and had to drop to about 2200 feet until we were about 10 miles from Ottawa where the clouds started breaking up. We landed without incident, unloaded the airplane, loaded the car and got the plane tucked away. It was 5:30pm when we jumped in the car for our 4 mile drive home. We had a GREAT time but it is WONDERFUL to be home!!!!

Oshkosh 2007 - Half way home

2007-07-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

It's Saturday.. we spent the morning working the X-Plane booth. We made our way back to the campsite, which we tore down in the morning, where our plane was waiting. We crammed in the last few items and checked on weather. We were going to make our way to Moline to visit Sandi's family and her grand-baby. Skies were clear at Osh but OVC @ 2300 in Moline. With no tent or campsite to go back to, we departed 27 at Osh and headed south. We had to descend to 2000 feet about 40 miles out to stay under the cloud deck (love that obstacle clearance on the 496 even though the controller called out a big tower on our right) and then an uneventful landing at MLI. Hope to make it home tomorrow afternoon.