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I spent several hours reinstalling everything on the aircraft - spinner, plenum chamber, cowling, ELT, landing gear leg fairings, wheel pants, first aid kit, rear seat riser, seats, seat belts, all missing screws, etc. On Saturday I borrowed a very nice set of Intercomp ACII scales from Ron M., the Aircraft Maintenance Engineer based at Smiths Falls, and weighed the aircraft. Intercomp’s main business is making race car scales, and they apparently are the official scale supplier of scales for many automotive racing leagues. The scales I borrowed were appropriately calibrated for use with certificated aircraft, so I am comfortable that my weight and balance is accurate.

I had to close the hangar door during the weighing, to ensure that any wind did not affect the results. It was really, really hot inside that closed hangar, so I was really looking forward to a cold beer when I got back home.

The aircraft weighed a bit more than I hoped, but the same could be said about me. I was hoping for a weight around 1150 lb, but it weighed in at 1177 lb. This is with the oil sump filled to capacity (8 US quarts), all fairings, etc. I forgot to remove the pitot tube cover, but it’s weight is negligible, and counterbalances the ELT antenna that I had forgotten at home. My aircraft has a lot of extra equipment, which helps explain why it is so heavy - full IFR panel with second navigation radio, heated pitot tube, wing leveler, heavy IO-360-A1B6 engine, Hartzell constant speed prop, inverted fuel and oil systems, firewall thermal insulation, leather seats, cockpit sidewall upholstery, baggage compartment tie downs, etc.

I weighed the aircraft with and without landing gear leg fairings and wheel pants. It weighed 1170 lb without all the fairings, which is the configuration that it will be in for the first few flights.

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In Canada, we need to do a fuel flow test before we can receive the Special Certificate of Airworthiness for the aircraft. The aircraft is supposed to be at the maximum climb pitch attitude. The crafter of that requirement has side stepped the question of how one would know the maximum climb pitch attitude before doing any flight testing.

It was raining this morning, so I cleaned up a few odds and ends, then did a big inspection of the engine installation. I found a few loose ends, which I tied off. This afternoon the rain stopped, so I called Jim M., who conveniently lives in the town of Smiths Falls, and made the mistake once of telling me to phone him if I ever needed some help. He didn't seem too upset when I asked him if he could come out to the airport - I'm guessing he used it as an excuse to beg off working on his "Honey Do List".

I disconnected the fuel line at the fuel injection servo, and put the end in a gas can that Jim held. I ran the boost pump for 60 seconds, and then weighed the gas can with a set of fishing scales. I subtracted the weight of the empty gas can, and determined that the fuel flow was about 45 USG/hr. The fishing scales were calibrated against several known weights - they have an error of 0.1 lb or less.

The official fuel flow test description is silent on the pass-fail criteria, so I decided to use FAR 23.955 as guidance - 125% of the fuel flow at max take-off power. I figure the fuel flow at take-off power should be no more than 20 USG/hr, so I set the pass-fail criteria at 25 USG/hr. The actual result of 45 USG/hr is way more than enough, so I am happy.

I did two sets of tests - one on a flat taxiway (11° pitch attitude), and one with the aircraft at 21° pitch attitude. The results were essentially the same for all conditions, so I am comfortable that there would be no problem at even higher pitch attitudes.

I had minimum fuel in the tanks. In fact, the first time I tried the left tank, I sucked the tank dry before getting 60 seconds of fuel - I had to add a bit more. The last time I tried the right tank, the fuel pressure fell after 55 seconds, as the tank started to run dry.

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In years past there have been one or two RV-8/8A builders meetings during the EAA Fly-In at Oshkosh in the Theater in the Woods. Several other builders who frequent the Yahoo RV-8 Group have expressed interest this year, so there should be at least a handful of builders at the Theater in the Woods at the following dates/times:

  • Tuesday at 10:15
  • Thursday at 10:15

Both meetings would be at the Theater in the Woods. If it is raining, we will meet under the roof. If it is not raining, we can meet just outside on the end away from the stage. I’ll bring stick-on name tags and markers, so we can identify the people who belong to the names we’ve seen online.

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It’s been a busy ten days. I was in Montreal for a few days the week before last, and my sister and family arrived for a week last Saturday. It was great to spend time with them, but it was a bit tiring, as we aren’t used to having three children around 24/7. They flew back home this afternoon, so after they left I zipped out to Smiths Falls for a few hours.

One of the big items that was on my To Do list was to get some sort of RV transition training. I have flown a wide variety of aircraft types (around 90 types, at last count), and one of the things that test pilots learn how to do is to quickly adapt to the unique characteristics of new aircraft types. But, I don’t have a lot of tail wheel aircraft time in the big picture. I did my initial flight training in a Piper Cub, plus the occasional flight in a tail wheel aircraft since then, and hadn’t flown any tail wheel aircraft since my Dad and I flew his Fleet Canuck from Nova Scotia to Oshkosh and back in 2001.

Originally, I had planned to get some transition training from one of the recognized RV flight instructors. But my schedule has been so fluid that this was difficult to organize. I finally gave up on that and went with Plan B. Three weeks ago I did a flight in a Maule M-4-210C - photos with Andrew B., an instructor based out of Smiths Falls. The M-4 is an early Maule, with the small tail, which makes it quite loose in yaw, and you definitely need to use your feet. It was a good way to reawaken the connection between my eyes, brain and feet. It was fairly ugly at first, but Andrew doesn’t scare easily, and things went progressively better as the hour progressed.

This afternoon, I did a half hour of circuits in an RV-6, thanks to Lee F., a coworker. There was a bit of a crosswind, which added to the training value. The first take-off wasn’t pretty, as I was overcontrolling a bit on the rudder, but it was safe. Subsequent circuits were much better, once I figured out what gains I needed on the feet. Each circuit was better than the last, and the fourth landing was perfect, so I stopped there - I learned a long time ago that there is no point to attempting to see if you can repeat a perfect landing.

I’m satisfied now that I am ready to fly the RV-8, once we get to that stage. Thanks Andrew and Lee.

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After I got home yesterday, I tried to contact Grand Rapids Technologies to ask for assistance with the fuel flow activation problem. I couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone, so resorted to e-mail. Tim, the EIS technical support guy, e-mailed back with some advice, but that didn’t help.

It looked like the engine monitor would have to go back to the factory, so this morning, I zipped into the hangar to carefully record all the configuration settings, then removed the unit. Today is a holiday up here, but I planned to courier it out tomorrow.

Tim, the tech support guy, e-mailed me back mid-day today with another possible fix - he had dug into their records, and found that the unit had been calibrated twice. The activation code was changed when it was calibrated the second time, but they sent me the first, out-of-date, activation code. I tried the correct code, and it worked. It was a wasted trip to the hangar, but it did force me to update my record of the configuration settings. I’m going to put them in the POH, so they are handy in case the unit ever loses its memory somehow.

This afternoon and evening I got two rounds of fibreglas work done on the cowling to plenum chamber transition. Things are coming along nicely, but there are at least two more days required to finish that off.

I’ll be heading on the road for most of the week, and will have family in town for a week starting on Saturday. So I won’t make any real progress until the week of 14 July. If things go very smoothly, I could possibly have the final inspection late that week.

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I took the day off work today, and spent the morning at the hangar. I had noted yesterday that the idle mixture was very rich. At 700 rpm, if you pull the mixture back very slowly from full rich, the rpm should increase 10 to 50 rpm. I had over a 200 rpm increase. I wasn’t sure whether this was simply way out of adjustment, or whether it was a symptom of some other issue. The idle mixture should have been set during the engine run in the test cell after the overhaul, so I wanted to be sure that there wasn’t something else going on. A web search indicated that a rich idle mixture could be caused by an internal leak inside the fuel injection servo. Such a leak, if present, could be seen by removing the air induction “snorkel”, and putting a cap on the metered fuel line going from the fuel injection servo to the “spider” on top of the engine. Then you select full throttle and rich mixture, and pressurize the system with the boost pump. An internal leak will cause fuel to come out of the small tubes that can be seen in the throat of the fuel injection servo. There was no leak in my system.

Another possible cause of too rich mixture could be too much oil on the K&N air filter. So, I put the induction snorkel back in place without the air filter for a quick test. I still got more than a 200 rpm rise when I pulled the mixture back at 700 rpm, so the air filter was not the cause. After putting the air filter back in place, I adjusted the idle mixture and idle speed to be approximately correct. As a point of reference, I needed to turn the adjusting wheel about one full turn to get the mixture approximately in the right range. I’ll do the final adjustment after the engine is broken in.

I chased down two small brake system leaks in the cockpit, and spent quite a while looking for, but failed to find, the source of a fuel smell in the cockpit.

I’ve got some sort of problem with the activation of the fuel flow option on the EIS 4000 engine monitor. You need to enter two codes to activate that option, but my system refuses to accept the codes. I couldn’t raise GRT on the phone, so sent an e-mail.

This afternoon I did some sanding on the transition ducts I made to connect the cowl air inlets to the plenum chamber on top of the engine, then applied some more fibreglas filler.