Short Flight Over Herriman

Today was another first.  Arlene’s brother, Allen and his wife Shirleen came for a visit.  We drove to the airport and I took Allen up for a short flight.  We did a touch and go and then flew out over Herriman to the south.  I was very pleased with the performance of the RV-12.   This is the first time I have had a full grown man in the passenger seat.  Allen and I are about the same size and I had 17 gallons of fuel on board.  That made us pretty close to gross weight.  The RV-12 flew exceptionally well.  We had a great time.  After the flight Arlene took our picture.  Then Arlene and Shirleen climbed in and I took their picture.

Short Flight On A Windy Day

I was able to go up for a short flight this morning.  My schedule for the last few days has made it impossible to go out to the airport.  Today I have the time but the winds are starting to pick-up in front of a coming storm.  I dropped Tim (my grandson) off at work and headed to the airport.  It was about 8:30 am when I got into the air.  I was afraid the wind was going to start increasing so I stayed in the pattern.  I flew for nearly an hour working on take-offs and landings.  Upwind from runway 16 is a corn maze the farmer does each year.  Today I extended my upwind and took a picture. The kids in the area really like to go there in the evenings.  They come from all around the valley. 

After doing 6 touch and goes I put the airplane back in the hangar.  I went down to the local gas station and purchased some gas, returned to the hangar and fueled the airplane.  I am ready to go up again when the weather permits.

Two Days of Flying

Yesterday and today I went up for 2+ hours each day.  Yesterday I took off from South Valley Regional and did 3-touch-and-goes.  I then flew to the Tooele valley and did 2-more touch-and-goes at the Tooele airport.  From there I flew south over the city and into the Cedar Valley.  I flew to the south side of the valley and there I calibrated the AOA (angle of attack).  To do so I needed to establish a fast cruise and then fly some +5 deg /-5 deg maneuvers to give the AOA a base line.  I then performed 3-different stalls.  The first stall was clean, no flaps.  The second was a stall with 1 notch of flaps.  The third stall was full flaps.  After completing each stall I pushed the “stall” button on the SkyView.  I now have the AOA widget on the PFD next to the airspeed tape.  It is really great to see that I have sufficient lift to fly.  Or in other words, I am not exceeding the angle of attack. 

Today I flew down to Delta.  I used the autopilot.  I entered a very small flight plan with 2-waypoints.  The first was the Nephi airport and the second was the Delta airport.  I turned on the autopilot and activated the flight plan (HSI & ALT).  The airplane performed flawlessly.  After reaching Delta I switched to altitude and heading hold (TRK & ALT).  I flew down to Holden, over to Scipio and back up through Nephi and back to South Valley Regional.  What a fun time I had.  I took a picture of Cedar Valley over Fairfield Peak.

More Touch-and-Goes

Today I had a few minutes of open time.  Who said being retired was going to be a walk in the park. Like I have heard so many before me say, now that I am retired I don’t know how I had time to go to work.  This is crazy.  I stopped and purchased 10 gals of fuel on my way to the airport.  I fueled the airplane and because of time limitations I was only able to fly for 0.7 hours.  I stayed in the pattern and did 6-more touch-and-goes. The pattern was pretty quiet this morning.  Only one other airplane took off and started some pattern work as I was finishing up.  I had a great though short time.   This is a sweet little airplane to fly.

Did 6-Touch-and-Goes

I went out to the airport early this morning.  I pulled the airplane out onto the apron and did a pre-flight.  Everything was in order.  I got in, started the engine and allowed the oil temperature to come up.  The oil pressure was fine, the servos connected and all was good.  After the oil temperature was up I taxied out to the run-up area for runway 16.  There was a helicopter doing closed pattern work and mine was the only other aircraft entering the pattern.  I took off and it was wonderful to be in the air again.  Because of time restraints I could only do some touch-and-goes.   There was a slight cross wind.  The wind was 220 at 6.  After the touch-and-goes I taxied back to the hangar and put the airplane away.

I have only 6 –gallons of gas in the tank so I loaded up my fuel cans.  I will buy some fuel on my next trip out.

Reinstall Roll Servo

I received the roll servo from Dynon yesterday.  The packing slip says they corrected the problem and waived the repair fee because the servo is still under warranty.  They did not indicate the nature of the problem, only that it had been fixed.  I went to the hangar and reinstalled the servo.  It seems that there is always something that causes a simple procedure to become complicated.  The first thing I did was make the electrical connections.  After making sure the connections were good I proceeded to install the servo and the flaperon pushrod.   While attempting to install the servo I dropped the bolt and washer used to attach the flaperon pushrod to the roll servo arm.  Of course I was in the baggage compartment and had to exit the airplane to get a light and magnet so I could retrieve the bolt from under the baggage compartment.  What fun we have when trying to complete a fairly simple task.  I was finally able to install the servo and install the pushrod successfully.  At that point I turned on the SkyView.  As it was booting up it found the servo and installed some updated software.  I ran the servo test and calibration.  It seems all is well.  

I reinstalled the covers, plates, upholstery, seats, etc.  I also installed the top fuselage skin and upper cowling.  Of course that did not go without a hitch.  While installing the 100+ screws I ended up using my 8/32 tap to fix the threads on several nutplates to keep from stripping out the heads of the screws.  One of the nutplates was under the left canopy attachment arm so I was forced to remove the canopy.  All in all, I was able to get everything reinstalled and tightened so the airplane is now ready to fly.  The oil pressure problem has been repaired and the roll servo is now back on line.  I would have flown today but the weather was pretty bad at that point.  Severe rain at the airport with lots of thunder showers in the vicinity.  I will return to the airport and do some touch and goes tomorrow morning.

Servo Wiring

Today I checked the continuity of the servo wiring.  I referenced the wiring schematic and determined where the wires went from the servos to the AV5000 control module.  Because I started building the airplane before the SkyView system was available the original wiring was for the D180.  When I ordered the avionics the SkyView was the only system available.  I had to install the conversion wiring harnesses to make the system work correctly.  That means the wires go through the harnesses and are divided up before they reach the control module.  

I traced the wires to both the “Options” and “Autopilot” Sub-D connectors.  I removed the connectors from the control module.  

I also removed the seat inspection panel  and using my muli-meter began checking continuity.  I checked the harness and found continuity to the Sub-D connectors except for the black/white and orange wires.  Because the roll servo is wired through the pitch servo I checked continuity on these wires from the pitch servo to the roll servo.  There was continuity on both.   Again I checked and confirmed there was no continuity on these wires from the Sub-D connector to the pitch servo.  The drawings show the orange wire terminating at pin 4 in the connector and the black/white wire terminating at pin 3.  By checking the pins I discovered the pins are reversed.  The black/white wire terminates and pin 4 and the orange wire terminates at pin 3.  I checked the continuity through these circuits.  They are good.  I have emailed Vans and Dynon to see if I should leave these pins as they are or switch them.  It seems to me that because there is continuity in all of the wires, I am getting 12.+ V in the red wire (power) and because the pitch servo functions properly  the roll servo must be bad.  I hope to hear from Dynon soon.