Details
Hits: 1846

My trip to Wichita for the next phase of CSeries flight testing finally took place over last weekend. I flew down on Thursday, then drove up to Salina where the test aircraft had deployed (Salina is an old USAF Strategic Air Command base, with a long runway, so it is perfect for runway performance testing). We reviewed test results from the Bombardier testing on Friday morning. The winds in the afternoon were much lower than forecast - almost calm instead of the expected 10 kt, so we took advantage of the surprise opportunity to get our testing done. The winds stayed calm, so we were done by the end of the afternoon. We reviewed the data from our tests on Saturday morning to confirm that we hit the test conditions, and that the results were acceptable. Sunday we flew home. I had expected it would take a week or more, as it is very difficult to find light winds in Kansas in the spring.

The weather today was excellent, and I hadn’t gotten a day off last weekend, so I didn’t feel at all guilty about taking today to go flying. I zipped over to Lachute, Quebec (CSE4) to check out the small restaurant on the airfield, to see if it would be a good place to bring Terry for lunch someday. The food was perfectly adequate - I’ll let her make her own decision on the menu.

Casse Croute Des'Airs menu page 1Casse Croute Des’Airs menu page 1

 

Casse Croute Des'Airs menu page 2Casse Croute Des’Airs menu page 2

Details
Hits: 1755

I was supposed to be heading to Wichita on Friday, but that blew up at 5:00 when I checked my phone for messages that had arrived overnight. It turned out that they had discovered a snag with the test aircraft, and it would take a couple of days to set things right, and the weather forecast suggested that the short-lived good weather window would be gone by the time they were ready to go again. The type of testing we are doing requires quite low winds, so it can take quite a bit of waiting to finally get the right conditions.

Flying over the airport at Ottawa I took advantage of my unexpected weekend in Ottawa by flying to the Vintage Wings Fly-In Breakfast this morning. The weather was pretty much perfect, except a bit cool. It was smooth as silk for the flight over, and Ottawa Tower was happy to have me fly right over the airport at 2500 ft, as I zipped towards Gatineau.

 

Sabre One, in Golden Hawks ColoursSabre One was parked outside.

 

Spitfire XVI and Harvard IVThe Spitfire XVI and Harvard IV were looking good in the sun.

 

Hurricane IVHurricane IV

Details
Hits: 1837

I didn't get flying on the weekend, as other things got in the way. Saturday was dedicated to finishing off a household plumbing repair. Sunday was the annual Smiths Falls Flying Club work day - we had an excellent turn out of people, and a long list of misc airfield and building maintenance items was completed.

It looks like I'll be on the road next weekend, and today's weather forecast was reasonably promising, so I booked a day off. Originally Terry and I planned to fly to Edenvale for lunch, but the winds were stronger than I expected, after yesterday's cold front passage, so I pulled the plug on that plan this morning. It would have been very bumpy at low altitude, and Terry does not enjoy that sort of thing.

Smiths Falls Airport with grass runway at red arrowThe winds at Ottawa were forecast to be gusting to 22 kt, roughly 70° off the axis of the runway at Smiths Falls, so It looked like a good day to do some crosswind practice.

Smiths Falls also has an unoffical grass crosswind runway, roughly 1550 ft long, at 90° to the main runway (I calculated the length by comparing it to the 4000 ft long main runway in the Google Maps satellite image). It is not listed in any of the official publications, as it is not offiically maintained, and it is almost perfectly lined up with the clubhouse. The flying club uses it to teach students how to do short field take-offs and landings in the flying club C172s.

I walked the runway this morning, to confirm its condition was suitable, in case the wind strength increased after I took off, and I needed a more into wind runway for landing. I concluded that the runway condition was perfectly acceptable, but the west side of it was in better shape than the east side.

You can see the grass runway in this shot - the arrow is pointing to the south end of the runway.

 

Looking north down the grass runwayThis shot is taken from the south end of the grass runway, looking north along the runway axis. The club house is visible past the far end of the runway.

 

Trees on final for the grass runwayThis shot, taken from the south end of the runway, facing south, shows the trees that you have to clear on final.

 

Ready for take-offI did several take-offs and landings on the main runway, with the winds roughly 70° off, at 10 to 20 kt. Then I did one low approach to the grass runway to convince a few dozen Canada Geese to leave, then one landing and a take-off. The grass is a bit long, so there was quite a bit of rolling friction, which allowed me to stop about half-way down the grass runway, with no braking.

This is the view from the cockpit, just prior to starting the take-off roll.

Details
Hits: 2082

I booked Thursday as a day off, as I was scheduled to be heading on the road on Sunday, for some flight testing. The weather was good, so I took full advantage with an RV-8 flight, the first one with the new airspeed indicator (ASI). It was quite turbulent, so it was hard to get an exact comparison with the airspeed indicator on the EFIS. Within the limits of accuracy imposed by the turbulence, it seemed like the new analog ASI was very close to the EFIS airspeed at normal cruise speeds, but it indicated roughly 5 kt fast during approach and landing. I intend to do a proper ASI instrument error check against a water manometer sometime in the next couple of months.

We got word on Friday that there was a two day delay in our travel, as the weather in Kansas has been poor, and the company had not yet finished their flight testing, so they are not ready for us to do our portion of this test phase. I just got another update a few minutes ago, and the poor weather has continued, so we have another two day delay, with the latest plan having us leave Ottawa on Thursday. At one point, I had hoped to fly the RV-8 to Yarmouth yesterday, returning home on Wednesday, but that got cancelled because I was supposed to head to Wichita on Sunday. Now, with Plan D, I won't be leaving until Thursday at the earliest, so I could have flown to Yarmouth after all, if only I had a better crystal ball. Drat.

Details
Hits: 1849

I needed to do some maintenance on the aircraft, and Saturday’s weather forecast had a front coming through, with wind and showers, so I decided that this would be a maintenance day.

I removed the original, damaged, “round dial” airspeed indicator (ASI), and replaced it with a new one purchased from Van’s Aircraft. The advantage of buying one from Van’s is it is delivered with the correct coloured arcs and red and blue ticks to match the airspeed limits of your model RV.

I was very glad to have installed an openable door on the aft side of the forward baggage compartment. That door provides good access to behind the instrument panel. Even with the door, it is still a pain in the butt to replace instruments, unless you have a helper. I didn’t have a helper organized, so after removing the damaged ASI, I inserted the new one blind - fortunately it was the same make and model as the first one, so the flange was a tight fit in the hole, and that held it in place. I scurried around to the cockpit, and was amazed to see that through blind luck I had inserted it at the exact correct angle so the four holes in the ASI were perfectly lined up with the screw holes in the panel.

New pitot-static plumbing behind the instrument panelAfter replacing the ASI, I replaced all the quick-disconnect fittings in the pitot and static lines with Nylo-Seal fittings. I did a static system check, and found no leak at all in a one minute test. There was a very small leak in the pitot system, but it is way smaller than any pitot system leak limits I can find published.

Details
Hits: 1803

Spring has finally arrived, and the weather today was gorgeous. Terry and I took advantage with our first lunch flight of the year, to Sherbrooke, QC. The last time we were at Sherbrooke was our second last flight together last year, during the peak of the fall leaves.  Sherbrooke has a very nice airport restaurant, and friendly and helpful line staff.  It is always a pleasure to stop there.

We hope to start doing longer trips with the aircraft in a few weeks, so this was a good chance for Terry to get reacclimatized to travelling by RV–8.

Mount Orford, still with snowWe were quite shocked to see several ski hills with all the ski runs still covered by snow. They must have made snow until very late in the season. Here is Mount Orford, near Magog, QC. It was open until 07 April 2015, which was the earliest it had closed in the several seasons. In 2014, it was open until 18 April.

 

On top of the clouds, at 10,000 ft On the way home, clouds had moved in near Sherbrooke - we climbed up to 10,000 ft to get on top to find smooth air.