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N124F First Flight

Well it finally happened. I ran out of items on my to do list (for now) and finally flew N124F for the first time! The weather was great, the airplane flew and performed exceptional. Can't wait to fly off my 40 hours.
 

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way to go.

Brad,

your plane looks great and I hope it flies as good as it looks.

You will look back and say "time well spent" now go fly.

Jon
 
Recognize your lights?

Congratulations Brad!
Nice paint scheme.


Hey Paul, recognize your lights? They were a late addition replacing a poor product from a now defunct company. Haven't flown at night yet but love the strobes and nav lights even in daytime. I have had several compliments on them despite few people having even seen the plane.

Great product and value.
 
Working through issues

Thanks for the kind words. I've now flown 5.6 hours and am working through issues.

First is a bad radio. My MGL V6 receives great but my transmission is very weak and garbled. I'll find out tomorrow if it's radio or cable/Antenna. My guess is that I accidently transmitted once (years ago) without the antenna connected and blew the transmit transistor. Don't know if anyone repairs this radio or not.

The next issue is CHT during climb. At 120kts, by 1500 ft #3 and #4 both exceed 400 deg on a cool day. I control by reducing power and going 130kts +. In cruise at 7500 ft all CHTs are between 330 to 380 depending on how hard I push it. I've got one E-mag so timing could be a factor. I'm currently running the E-mag on the base advance curve with MAP disconnected. I've got good fuel flow and I have sealed the few baffle gaps I found.
My current plan of attack is to
retard timing a couple degrees on the E-mag
Add the #3 baffle channel (#3 is hottest by 10-20 deg)
Add #1 and #2 baffle air dams
Clean up any fin flashing around the plugs
If still too high, I will likely trim 2 inches from the lower aft edge of the cowling


Finally, I've got the dreaded heavy wing. Not, super urgent as my aileron trim can neutralize but it's quite heavy without it. I am following Van published approach on resolving.

Any thoughts any of you have are appreciated.

If interested I can post plots of any Dynon parameters. I've created a nice Python program that plots just about everything and exports KML of the flight path. i would be glad to share the program if anyone is interested.
 
Couple of thoughts:
-My V6 had the exact same issues out of the box. I tossed it in favor of a Trigg.
-Had the exact same high CHT issue after install of an E-Mag. First adjustment was to the max past TDC base timing of 6 degrees. I wanted to see the biggest change possible right off the bat. Ended up leaving it there. All CHT’s came down 20 degrees. Then I targeted individual cylinder baffling issues to even out CHT’s across the board.
 
At least the radio is "good"

I had the radio tested today at the local avionics shop. The radio is good, with 7 watts transmit and the antenna cable tested good. I guess now its time to trace those wires and ohm them all out. Given the number of settings on the V6, my problem may lie there as well. The shop thought it might be the antenna but I doubt the 10 year old never used deltapop antenna would be bad.
 
V6

I had bad transmission clarity from the start and weak headset performance with the in ear Halo QT. Fiddling with all the setting options on the radio made little difference. So, I finally deployed the simple setting option ie., not messing with all the bells and options the designer can optimize. Your experience is not unique and there are numerous posts here with good advice on set up, but I Ended up with basic simple ( dont remember the term in the instructions) and it worked very well. I also switched to Bose A20 and the radio sounds like a 747 Captain landing at JFK .
 
I had bad transmission clarity from the start and weak headset performance with the in ear Halo QT. Fiddling with all the setting options on the radio made little difference. So, I finally deployed the simple setting option ie., not messing with all the bells and options the designer can optimize. Your experience is not unique and there are numerous posts here with good advice on set up, but I Ended up with basic simple ( dont remember the term in the instructions) and it worked very well. I also switched to Bose A20 and the radio sounds like a 747 Captain landing at JFK .

Yes, I've already played with many settings and have flown with two very different headsets. I've tried with VOGAD and VOX OFF, and various microphone settings. I'm sure there is a pony under there somewhere. I heard of similar symptoms from mic grounding as well. Hopefully i will find it this week
 
Getting better

After reinstalling the radio it now transmits at full volume. Sounds great without the engine running but transmit becomes somewhat garbled when in flight and noisy. Much better over all. Gonna play with settings more.

I changed my baffles to have proper taper for my ECI cylinders, added the duct/channel on the back of #3 , an air dam on #1, and plugged all of the little holes. Today on take off I still had 415F on two cylinders at 120 kt climb and 75F ambient. Had to substantially reduce power to control. Before hot to cold was 3,4,2,1. Today was 1,4,2,3. Obviously the #3 duct worked great and #1 air dam was too much. Conditions were warmer and lower altitude so hard to compare Temps to previous flights but guessing I'm about 10 F cooler at cruise on average. Assuming I reduce the air dam size I think that leaves me with #4 a problem during climb only. #4 is middle of the group in cruise.

I've traced my heavy wing to an improperly fabricated outer wing aileron bracket on the left side. I've got to make a new one, there isn't enough room to simply adjust the aileron bracket. A bummer but shouldn't be too difficult.
 
Better everyday

I removed #1 air dam and had best cooling experience yet. 120kt climb, 85F ambient #4 got to 410F but I didn't have to pull power back for the first time ever. All others remained less than 400. Once cruising at 3000ft, 2500 RPM, all cylinders were about 350F and within 10 degrees of each other. I'm going to try taping off the top 25% of the oil cooler to see if that helps #4 climb temperatures without hurting oil temperature. I'm excited to think I am close to solving my cooling problems.
 
Phase 1 Complete and Radio FIXED

I thought I would provide an update. The plane now has 45 hours and is out of Phase 1. The last two flight have included my son as passenger which was super fun. He helped buck many of the fuselage rivets years ago.

Today I proved the radio was finally fixed and that was the final squawk! I had discovered the radio transmission was good at frequencies 121.0 and above and quickly degraded as the tuned frequency was reduced below that. I finally pulled the antenna and measured the VSWR and I couldn't get a stable reading. Sometimes it was in spec but the slightest movement made the reading swing wildly. I inspected the antenna and discovered it was cracked at the bend (see pics). I ordered a RAMI replacement and today I sounded like a boss (and the tower agreed)!. I bet if I ground down the crack and soldered the crack the old antenna would work too. It is such a relief to finally have that solved. I thought the varying performance vs frequency was a very odd symptom. I hope my experience might help someone else with their radio. I'm sure I cracked the antenna during the build. I remember more than once running into it while on the mechanics creeper. The old antenna was a Delta Pop Red-Tip. I purchased the RAMI on the outside chance it had something to do with the Delta Pop and my radio. I am now very happy with the MGL V6 radio.




After reinstalling the radio it now transmits at full volume. Sounds great without the engine running but transmit becomes somewhat garbled when in flight and noisy. Much better over all. Gonna play with settings more.
 

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Moving right along.

Just a few pics of where I’m at.

Chris Santschi
RV4 #4633
 

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