...getting this weekend's thread started. I'm down for annual - WX is beautiful. 
VAFDR
VAFDR
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Van's Air Force
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What did you do w/your RV this weekend? (March 9-10, 2024)
- Thread starter DeltaRomeo
- Start date
Sold the assembled 14A emp with lcp earlier in the week (to a family building a tree/plane house!), and was able to put the 14A finishing kit and the rest of the Zenith assemblies in storage, so I have room again at the house to work on the 14A. Have the missing and damaged emp kit lcp replacements on the way, so soon will have back to a complete emp kit and continue with the start over!
PilotjohnS
Well Known Member
PilotjohnS
Well Known Member
Cant believe your wheel pants are surviving, you are definitely a top notch pilot.
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Adding IFR gear to my RV-9A for future training and pilot certification. Mounted Garmin 175 and G5. Next up wiring and plumbing. She is an expensive mistress at times.
Quick breakfast run yesterday morning with friends. A neighbor recently purchased a pretty nice little RV3 so we had a rare photo opportunity with TWO RV-3s flying together. We actually have FOUR RV-3‘s here at our fly-in neighborhood. We keep talking about getting all of us in a single photo, but it’s hard to coordinate.
About 2 minutes after the pic above was taken, something failed in my propeller and I had oil all over my windscreen. I broke from the formation and headed direct to our destination airport. I had limited forward visibility, so the Lead took me to a 1 mile right base. Years of flying my Midget Mustang made the zero forward vis landing a non-event.
My oil pressure went from my standard 70-ish psi to a low of 25 psi, but never zero. I was using 20” of manifold pressure and 2400 rpm when I first noticed oil on my windscreen. The prop rpm became erratic as the incident progressed. At one point when I reduced manifold pressure from 19” to 15”, the prop oversped up to 3050rpm. In the end, I estimate I lost about 4 quarts of oil in the incident that lasted about 10 minutes from when I first noticed it to when I was on the ground.
Lucky [or not, tbd] for me, I own 2 identical props. I robbed the prop off my Glasair 1RG and installed it on the RV to get it home. Also lucky for me, half my neighborhood flew to breakfast so I was able to bum a ride home to retrieve the Glasair prop, my pickup, and all the necessary tools. I had everything pretty well buttoned up from the prop swap last night, but it was dark and I didn’t want to do a solo test flight of an unflown prop without knowing *for sure* that the prop was the only problem. A neighbor gave me a ride to retrieve my plane this morning and it is now happily sitting in my hangar where it will likely drip oil for approximately the next decade.
Fun times.
My oil pressure went from my standard 70-ish psi to a low of 25 psi, but never zero. I was using 20” of manifold pressure and 2400 rpm when I first noticed oil on my windscreen. The prop rpm became erratic as the incident progressed. At one point when I reduced manifold pressure from 19” to 15”, the prop oversped up to 3050rpm. In the end, I estimate I lost about 4 quarts of oil in the incident that lasted about 10 minutes from when I first noticed it to when I was on the ground.
Lucky [or not, tbd] for me, I own 2 identical props. I robbed the prop off my Glasair 1RG and installed it on the RV to get it home. Also lucky for me, half my neighborhood flew to breakfast so I was able to bum a ride home to retrieve the Glasair prop, my pickup, and all the necessary tools. I had everything pretty well buttoned up from the prop swap last night, but it was dark and I didn’t want to do a solo test flight of an unflown prop without knowing *for sure* that the prop was the only problem. A neighbor gave me a ride to retrieve my plane this morning and it is now happily sitting in my hangar where it will likely drip oil for approximately the next decade.
Fun times.
Rod, your smile says it all! Bravo zulu!!!
Chuck Brietigam
RV-6XXL
Chuck Brietigam
RV-6XXL
Glad to see that you made it back OK........
Roadjunkie1
Well Known Member
So.......kind of like landing a short J-3 from the back seat......
Good to have a wingman!Nice job Rod! All kinds of other things could have happened!
OK: but you can't leave us hanging! Once you figure out what happened, please let us know what the verdict was! Sounds like it was the prop. Curious minds want to know.....
M
So.......kind of like landing a short J-3 from the back seat......
Nice job Rod! All kinds of other things could have happened!
OK: but you can't leave us hanging! Once you figure out what happened, please let us know what the verdict was! Sounds like it was the prop. Curious minds want to know.....
M
Yah, I was fortunate to have the best support a person in my position could ever dream of. The lead is a former B52 pilot and current T38 instructor pilot who just recently was promoted to Lt.Col. The other guy (in the other RV3) is a member of the KC Flight formation group. He gave me a ride back to KAKO yesterday morning in his Rocket. He’s also a 30 year A&P/IA so he helped me leak check the installation of the new prop and verified I wasn’t oozing oil from any other orifice.
I’m also very lucky in that the airport we were headed to for breakfast has a good prop shop on the field. I just abandoned the malfunctioning prop at their building on Saturday night. I talked with their prop guy this morning and he’s going to take a look as soon as he can.
I did my best this afternoon/evening to clean up 4 quarts of oil that went EVERY-Freaking-Where. I re-torqued and safetied the replacement prop to make sure I didn’t screw something up working out on the ramp in the cold and wind and rushed a bit by looming darkness. My little beast is buttoned up, wiped down, and refueled ready for flight as of about 30 minutes ago. I may get a quick flight in tomorrow morning, but it’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow evening because I have jury duty all week this week. Never a dull moment around here!
I’ll make a post when the prop shop figures out what went wrong.
Edited to add: Thanks for the kind words, Fred, and nice to hear from you! I remember when we flew to Leadville in a 3-ship with you and your wife in your plane, me with Dr. Dean Hall in his RV-4, and Jon Johansson along in his RV-4. I need to dig up those pictures sometime. Probably in the 1996-1998 timeframe.
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After weeks and weeks of rain, a few dry days allowed the runway to become usable. 50 minutes of blissful aerial therapy ensued ….
Nice looking RV-3. I really like that retro paint scheme!
newt
Well Known Member
<blink> Please do! It'd be a real treat to see Jon Johanson's -4 in flight. I've only saw it on static display in the Australian Aviation Museum in Adelaide.
(not to downplay the rest of you, of course!)
- mark
2 new types and 7.8 hours in the logbook this weekend - 5.5 transition training in Alex De Dominicis' RV-7, then a couple more of pattern work with my co-owner yesterday to get used to the differences in my new-to-me -9. We started on the long runway at Byron C83, then moved to progressively shorter runways at LVK, PAO, and back to a light but bumpy crosswind at SQL where the plane is based. All my tailwheel experience prior to this is in Citabrias, so the experience and speeds especially in the -7 was a lot different.
Of course, I didn't think to take pictures of any of it, so I'm attaching one from the hangar a couple weeks ago when I went to check it out after closing.
With how the day worked out, I didn't end up with a chance to go solo yet, and my work will probably keep me from sneaking out to the airport during this week, but I'm really excited about it - hopefully I'll remember to take some selfies for the RV Grin section next weekend.
Of course, I didn't think to take pictures of any of it, so I'm attaching one from the hangar a couple weeks ago when I went to check it out after closing.
With how the day worked out, I didn't end up with a chance to go solo yet, and my work will probably keep me from sneaking out to the airport during this week, but I'm really excited about it - hopefully I'll remember to take some selfies for the RV Grin section next weekend.
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