Another Milestone

The Hobbs on my RV-4 just hit 200 hours today. It has been relatively trouble free since the first flight on March 12, 2007. The only squawks so far have been the right brake getting soft a couple of times requiring it to be bled (no leaks obvious). It still continues to do this even though I replaced all the O-rings in the master cylinder and the wheel cylinder. The only other problem has been a rough idle since the last condition inspection. I am not sure what I did to the spark plugs on cylinders 3 and 4 but they were not firing properly at idle speeds. Run up and mag check was great but anything less than 900 RPM had a miss-fire. On base leg and final the EGT low temperature alarm would illuminate for #3 and #4 at engine idle speed. Add a little power and the alarms would clear. Anyway, I changed out the plugs on those cylinders and life is good again.

Have I said how great this airplane is? I am still amazed at the handling and responsiveness of this airplane. Everytime I put her up, just before closing the hanger door, I have to turn back for one more look. I now know what an addiction is.

Congratulations Jerry...

Do you even fly the Cessna 140 any more?

Regards,

Pierre, funny you should ask that question. After bragging out how trouble-free the RV4 has been it actually let me down today. It is amazing how these things work that way. On a short hop from 17J to BGE (to pay my hanger rent - you gotta have an excuse to fly!), the electric trim quit working. Fortunately it was stuck in neutral but it did make for an interesting landing. It took a surprising amount of back pressure on final and in the landing flair. It appears to be the China hat switch on the Infinity stick grip. After playing with it on the ground it started working. I sent an e-mail to JD at Infinity to see about a replacement.

To add insult to injury, a spark plug went dead on the right mag for # 3 cylinder on the next run up. It absolutelty will not fire. I give up on the 200 hour Champion plugs. A call to ACS has a new set of spark plugs on the way for delivery on Friday.

Now that the RV is grounded, I broke out the C140A today. To tell you the truth, I have only put about 25 hours on it in the 2 years that the RV has been flying. It is still a neat old airplane that is a challenge to fly or in particular, to land properly. If you want to appreciate the RV taildragger ground handling, jump in a C140. It will keep you on you toes.