This afternoon, ?Junior? (our RV-3 project) shook the airpark with his mighty voice for the first time ? the Mattituck TMXIO-320 roared to life with just a few turns of the prop after sitting pickled for a year. No doubt the two P-Mags had something to do with the quick start, and the Whirlwind 151 prop was incredibly smooth. With Louise on fire watch on the left and friend Ernie on the look-out from the right, I hit the starter to end the building phase and begin the final inspection phase ? the next several weeks will be a time for detailed examination of every critical part with lots of little finishing bits here and there. We took a bunch of pictures and some video, but it will take a couple of days to figure out how to get those moving pictures out of the camera and put them somewhere viewable. Here?s a post-exercise grin!
I was really impressed with how well the whole system has gone together, and we are just about a month over two years from getting started on the project. We spent the morning pouring in fuel a gallon at a time to calibrate the G3X fuel gauges ? this was an incredibly slick process, as you see it build the calibration curve graphically as you ?mark? each gallon. Garmin has done a stellar job at creating an easy process with this one ? it is really easy to see when the gauges max out (in our case at about 12 of the 15 gallons on each side) and you can?t see any more increase (due to dihedral). I was a little amused at the fact that the gauges were labeled ?1? and ?2? in the software calibration process, so I gave our friends at Garmin a call ? and by mid-afternoon I had an email with a screen shot of the revised software that said ?1/L? and ?2/R??.and the operational display shows thaem as ?L? and ?R?. Now that?s what I call responsive!
Louise pours in a gallon of 100LL
And Paul took ?marks? on the G3X to build the calibration curve:
Following the fuel gauge calibration, we did our climb attitude fuel flow checks by disconnecting the fuel line at the firewall, attaching a temporary line, and using the EFII boost pump to flow fuel into a calibrated bucket. The result? 48 Gallons/hour?..yeah, I think I?d call that ?adequate? for an IO-320!
All in all, it was a great day at the Polly Ranch Airplane factory! We have a lot of work to do yet before we stand at attention for Mel?s inspection, but with lots of picky neighbors who like to stop by, I think we can get there. Next up? A taxi down the runway to do the G3X magnetometer calibration. If it goes as slick as the fuel gauges, the avionics will be all set!
Paul
I was really impressed with how well the whole system has gone together, and we are just about a month over two years from getting started on the project. We spent the morning pouring in fuel a gallon at a time to calibrate the G3X fuel gauges ? this was an incredibly slick process, as you see it build the calibration curve graphically as you ?mark? each gallon. Garmin has done a stellar job at creating an easy process with this one ? it is really easy to see when the gauges max out (in our case at about 12 of the 15 gallons on each side) and you can?t see any more increase (due to dihedral). I was a little amused at the fact that the gauges were labeled ?1? and ?2? in the software calibration process, so I gave our friends at Garmin a call ? and by mid-afternoon I had an email with a screen shot of the revised software that said ?1/L? and ?2/R??.and the operational display shows thaem as ?L? and ?R?. Now that?s what I call responsive!
Louise pours in a gallon of 100LL
And Paul took ?marks? on the G3X to build the calibration curve:
Following the fuel gauge calibration, we did our climb attitude fuel flow checks by disconnecting the fuel line at the firewall, attaching a temporary line, and using the EFII boost pump to flow fuel into a calibrated bucket. The result? 48 Gallons/hour?..yeah, I think I?d call that ?adequate? for an IO-320!
All in all, it was a great day at the Polly Ranch Airplane factory! We have a lot of work to do yet before we stand at attention for Mel?s inspection, but with lots of picky neighbors who like to stop by, I think we can get there. Next up? A taxi down the runway to do the G3X magnetometer calibration. If it goes as slick as the fuel gauges, the avionics will be all set!
Paul