Man and Machine

corey    Flying, News, RV Project    

This weekend was filled with airplane related activities.

First, a fella I conversed with on one of the (many) RV related websites stopped by to check out my newly opened (and inventoried) empennage kit. I showed him the tools I had purchased, how the kit came in the box, and how small (and cold) my garage is.

I’ll be so happy once we get our new garage built – looks like we’ll be starting on it in January! This is great, though it comes at a pretty hefty price tag. While I couldn’t justify the cost if it was purely for building this airplane, it sure helps my motivation to spend that kinda dough. I’d really like to install a heating system, but I am reluctant to do so since I do not plan on using the garage as a workshop beyond the time needed to get the kit to a point where I’d need a hangar to work in (2 years max! Really! Well, maybe..).

Speaking of hangars and heated work spaces, Jeff (the guy that came to visit) and I headed over to Front Range Airport to meet up with Jerry B. Jerry has a very nice hangar there at FTG, heated with a propane reflective heat pipe dealy which works very nicely. Since he bought the hangar, he has had insulation installed and the concrete floor sealed with an epoxy coat. It very nice, well lit, and has plenty of room to work on his RV-7A. If it only had a bathroom you could live there.

Jerry got a Subaru H6 engine from Eggenfellner Aircraft. He was able to start it up for us, and yep, it sounds just like a Subaru. We grilled him on how hard it was to get attached and setup, and he told that it was no problem at all. Less than an hour from taking it off the crate to mounting it to the airframe. Another few minutes to hookup a temporary fuel pump and filter and voi la: the engine runs.

One of the major problems with traditional Lycoming/Continental engines in aircraft is vibration and noise. The Subaru engine has neither. It’s very quiet and hardly vibrates at all. (You can’t run a Lycoming in an enclosed area due to noise, and apparently if you don’t have the wings attached the vibration could cause damage to the airframe!)

I haven’t decided on my engine choice yet, but I will be watching Jerry’s project closely for the next year or so. There are a few concerns when using an “alternate” engine like the Subaru, so I may not go that route. One of the reasons I’m building this plane is so that I can allocate some of that time towards an A&P license. I figured experience with a “traditional” aircraft engine would be more beneficial in that regard, but in a year there might be enough data to convince me otherwise.

After Jerry showed us around and we oo’ed and ahh’ed at his bird, we took a look at his neighbor’s finished RV-7A. It seemed a little bit smaller than I had thought (though it’s wider than a current Cessna 172), but it certainly looked like a lot of fun to fly. I’ll have to get someone to let me fly around in one once I get to know the folks around here better.

That evening I headed over to Jeffco for the EAA 43 chapter meeting. I met a few folks and got to see most of the Rocky Mountain Regional Fly-in video, which was pretty cool. I didn’t stay at the air show very long, so it was nice to see footage of all the cool stuff I missed.

Then, on Sunday afternoon Cheryl had her first flight in a small airplane! The wind was a bit breezy out of the north, but didn’t cause any problems as we flew around and did a touch-n-go at Longmont. I landed a little flat, so it wasn’t as smooth as it could have been – I’m just a little bit rusty from not flying very much this last month or so.

All in all it was a good flight and she said that she’d fly with me again, so that’s a good thing!

I hope to start my IFR training (and my high performance, complex aircraft, and maybe the G1000 glass cockpit sign offs) here in January. Since I won’t be able to work on the kit anyway, I won’t have any excuses for delaying.

Check Ride: Passed!

corey    Flying, News, RV Project    

I passed my Private Pilot Check Ride today! I’m now a “real” pilot, no longer just a student!

I received my RV-7A Empennage kit on Tuesday, so I hope to have some time to inventory it this long Thanksgiving weekeng. I’m probably going to be using the LED Position lights from Creativair, which means I’ll need to buy the tail light (A555) from Van’s shortly (as it should be installed before completing this part of the kit).

I have awhile to decide on the other things that will be installed in the aircraft, which is good because they all cost a lot of money!

One Week and Counting

corey    Flying, News    

I want to write this down so I have a record of it, just in case I lose this piece of paper.

Date: Wednesday, October 23rd
Time: 10am
Location: Jeffco

Bring:
[ ] $350 cash ($5 bills, 10 bundles of 7 bills each)
[ ] Drivers License or Passport (whichever hasn’t be confiscated by the police)
[ ] FAA Written Test Results (hopefully you passed!)
[ ] Medical Certificate (it’s not expired, is it?)
[ ] Log Book (your instructor needs to sign his life away – don’t forget!)
[ ] Application for Certification (what does this even look like?)
[ ] Flight Plan to Rapid City
[ ] Weight and Balance with a 210lb passenger with no extra baggage

And after all that (and the weather is good) .. (and I don’t screw up) .. I’ll be a real 100% certified pilot!

Stage Three: Completed

corey    Flying    

I did my Stage 3 check ride with Ken Stock today. After a few minor bumbles during the ground discussion (why are there so many types of Class E airspace on the chart!? Talk about confusing!) the flight went really really well.

It was great weather, which I think helped a lot. With very very smooth air I didn’t deviate more than 10ft from my assign altitude while doing steep turns, slow flight with turns, etc etc. Even my short field landing went very well, landing a mere 20-30ft past the threshold.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I had booked the flight in the 172R, which has 20 horsepower less than the 172S (which is what I normally fly). Thankfully it didn’t play much of a factor and may have actually helped with my power-on stall, since I tend to drag it out in the 172S. I will say that it climbed awful-like! Leaving Longmont I swear it took 3 times longer than normal to get 500ft AGL so I could turn toward Jeffco and head back. While I don’t plan on flying the 172R again anytime soon, I certainly wouldn’t take it out on a hot day!

I’m scheduled to “fly” in the flight simulator on Sunday with my instructor Kyle. We decided this was the best way to get the additional .7 hours I need in simulated instrument conditions. After we run through that I plan on doing a short ground session in order to go over everything that I’ll need for the my upcoming Check Ride.

If I can find someone to do my Check Ride within the next week or two, I could be a certified Private Pilot in no time!

A Couple of Steps Away

corey    Flying    

Hopefully, I’ve taken my second-to-last flight with my instructor on my road to the Private Pilot License. I’m scheduled to fly this Friday with another instructor for my final Stage Check. This Stage Check is where they make sure I’m good enough to take the Check Ride with an independent DPE(Designated Pilot Examiner). Which is a good thing, as it costs around $350 (not counting the plane rental)! Having to do it twice would suck!

After that, I need to do one more (hopefully only one more) flight with my instructor to get reach the ‘simulated instrument’ time requirement. This is where you wear blinders to simulate flying through clouds and not being able to see anything but your instruments. We may do this in the simulator, but we’re not sure about that yet.

I’m excited to get this done, it’s been a really long time.. My first flight lesson took place at Boulder Municipal back in 1996, almost 10 years ago!

While I won’t own a plane the moment I get my license, I am well on my way to getting started on building one of those suckers. I suppose I can live with renting for now, as I still have my Instrument Rating to do anyways.. yay, only another 35 hours of lessons! (I guess that’s not very much compared to the 72 hours it’s taken me to get this far).

To infinity and beyond!