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Stanley Sport Aviation has held a fly-in on the Labour Day long weekend, every year since 1972. It is the biggest general aviation event in Atlantic Canada, and attracts fly-in and drive-in visitors from all over. I had wanted to get down to Yarmouth for a few days to visit my folks, and the biggest hole in my schedule was over that weekend, so I planned a trip to Yarmouth, with a side trip to Stanley. My dad has flown or drove to the fly-in for many, many years, so he was happy to come along.

The trip to Yarmouth on Friday morning took 2:53, flying IFR at 9000 ft.

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Terry and I did a Sunday lunch trip to Edenvale (CNV8) today. We had been there once before, in April 2012, but the airport restaurant had changed ownership and name since then. Edenvale airport was built as part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, but was taken out of service shortly after WWII. A Toronto businessman discovered the abandoned airport in 2003, purchased the land, rebuilt the runways, and reopened the airport.

Edenvale is west of Barrie, ON, 50 nm NNW of Toronto.

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Today was the second annual Race the Runway event at the Smiths Falls airport. The runway was closed to air traffic, and 80 car and motor cycle enthusiasts competed for the highest speed after a 1/2 mile acceleration. The time for the first 1/4 mile was also measured. There were a wide variety of very high performance, street-legal, cars and motorcycles registered for the event.

The winner was a Lamborghini Aventador, which ran the quarter mile in 10.39 seconds and reached 258 km/h (160 mph) in the 1/2 mile. I was there when it ran its third and final run and it was an impressive sight to see (and hear).

It was frustrating to not be able to fly today, but the Smiths Falls Flying Club does make quite a bit of much needed revenue from this event, so I understand why we must sacrifice a perfect flying day.

There were quite a number of local aircraft on display, including our RV–8.

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The most direct route from Smiths Falls to St. Thomas runs right by downtown Toronto. The weather was beautiful on Friday, so I elected to do the trip VFR, running right along the lakeshore. Toronto Terminal was very cooperative, but I did have to drop down to 2500 ft to stay below the traffic heading to Toronto Pearson International Airport.

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I took the day off on Friday to fly to St. Thomas, ON (CYQS) to have the prop dynamically balanced. RV–7 builder Gary Wilcox has a RPX Dynavibe prop balancer and he offered to do his magic after reading about my problem with recurring exhaust system cracks. Two other RV builders had emailed me to report that they had recurring exhaust system cracks until they had their prop balanced.

After arriving at St. Thomas we removed my cowling and plenum chamber cover, then Gary bolted the accelerometer to the crank case.

The optical pickup was bolted to a rocker box cover.

A piece of reflective tape was applied to the back of a prop blade, lined up with the optical pickup. This allows the system to know the prop angle when the vibration is at its peak amplitude.

This is the brains of the Dynavibe system.

The aircraft was tied to the front bumper of Gary’s truck, as I would be running the engine at my normal cruise power setting of 2400 rpm and about 24 in HG manifold pressure. I was concerned about possibly having the prop suck some debris from the ground into the prop at high power, so Gary swept the area, then used a leaf blower to blow any grit away.

I was hoping that the first reading would show a high vibration level, as that could explain the exhaust crack issue. But, the initial reading was only 0.12 IPS, which is fairly low, which means that excessive vibration is not likely the root cause of my problem.

The Dynavibe system told Gary what prop angle was too heavy, so he put a 1/4" bolt, washer and nut in one of the holes in the flywheel. The next run showed that too much weight had been added, so the shortest possible bolt was tried. Still too much weight.

Next he tried an AN970 washer under the head of one of the screws that secured the spinner (the originally spinner screw was replaced with longer structural screw). The next run showed that this had brought the vibration down to 0.06 IPS, which is considered excellent. The washer under the spinner screw isn’t an acceptable permanent installation, so I’ll need to put an equivalent weight in a hole in the spinner backplate. I’ll acquire a suitable small scale to determine how much heavier the washer + structural screw are than the original spinner screw. I’ll drill a hole in the spinner backplate, and install a suitable combination of hardware that will be equivalent to the temporary weight. I’ll need a bit more weight than the temporary one, as the distance from the prop shaft will be less, but this’ll be a simple calculation.

I couldn’t feel any difference in the vibration levels when I flew home, as they were pretty low to begin with. But, it was still a worthwhile thing to do, as it at least rules out one cause of my exhaust problems. I’ll probably order a new exhaust system, on the assumption that perhaps my current system has some sort of quality issue.

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Terry and I had a great trip to the annual EAA Airventure Fly-In at Oshkosh, WI. Terry flew down a week early, to spend some time with her many sisters. I flew the RV–8 to Manitowoc, WI on Saturday, 27 July to meet up with Terry. We spent the night with a sister in Manitowoc, then loaded up early Sunday morning and flew to Oshkosh, via the very specific arrival procedure.

We set up camp next to the aircraft, then went on site the register, have lunch, etc.