Flying the Farmville, VA Contest

This last weekend I flew in the 2008 Mason Dixon Clash at Farmville, VA.  The weather was crappy on Friday and since I had planned on showing up on friday morning before the brief I couldn’t make it.  They ended up cancelling the contest for friday.  And continued it for Saturday.  Saturday morning I got in the plane and cruised over to KFVX in 42 minutes.  That is 174 SMPH or 15 SMPG which is awesome for a Pitts.  I did have some tail wind about 12 knots.  When i got there Intermediate was about to start.  I got registered and Tech as quick as I could.  I was the last to fly in Intermediate with 7 pilots.  I flew the known to a 79% and to 1st place but because I was late to the Brief they docked me 50 points which put me at 77% and 3rd place.  If I had known better I could have protested the 50 point peneltey but but I didn’t so I just sucked it up and continued.  Later in the day we flew our freestyles and I flew that to a 4th place finish at 77%.   On Sunday we flew the Unknown which had 3 cross box maneuvers which all had to be done correctly to end up going to correct direction on the x-axis I did 2 of them correctly but the 3rd I turned the wrong way on a 270 deg turn and zero’d the last three figures.  This put me at last in the unknown and 6th out of 7 overall…Oh well.

Repairing Front Baffling Cracks

Today I charged forth repairing the front baffling that has decided to crack.  The crack on the right side front baffling was the original reason for removing the cowling but it gave me a chance to take a look inside to make sure everything associated with the gear mod was still hold on with no cracks.  Everything looked great so I made a couple of doublers to repair the cracks.  The pictures below are the finished product.

Time Spent 2.5 hours

Status Update

Well I have only flown twice since the contest. I spent a bunch of money on flying and I wanted to slow down a little. I flew 11 Hours last month and I am at 12 hours since the conditional sign off. I want to start finishing the wheel pants and gear leg fairings but I also want to fly so I don’t know what I am going to do. I will keep you all updated in the mean time.

Wildwoods Acroblast Jun 27-29 2008

Well I flew up to CapeMay, NJ from 2W6 which was a good flight nice 8 MPH tail wind. took 38 Minutes from wheels off to wheel on. Crossing the Deleware Bay was kind of spooky due to the low visability. I crossed it at 6500 Feet because it was 15 mile water crossing and I don’t like water after my incident in 2006. Anyway I got there just fine and in time to get registered and on the practice schedule. We got the contest started around 1500 and halfway between advanced we had a thunderstorm drill where everyone pushes their planes in the hangar. Luckly we had two hangars since we had somthing like 35-40 planes to get under cover. The T-storm was quick and soon enough it was over and back to flying. We got Unlimited and Advanced done by 1800 and then it was off to the friday night dinner. Which had Crab cakes and clam bake. Never been to a contest that had that kind of stuff. Oh and it was on the boardwalk down in Wildwood at Morey’s Piers. Thanks Will Morey your staff is awesome.

Saturday started off with a 0700 brief followed my 0830 first flight which was me of course. My first Intermediate flight and I was the first person to go. I made it through most of the known but had to take a brake after I zero’d something. Some how I came out of a manuever upright when I was supposed to be inverted. I also was all over the box with 7 outs. At the end of the known I was 6th place out of 9 guys. Not too terrible for my first time. My freestyle went better with only 1 out and one zero. Stupid me I did a reverse sharks tooth instead of regular sharks tooth…idiot. Oh well I got 4th in the freestyle with a 70% and that bumped me to 4th overall with 63% combined. That took us to the end of Saturday and on to the banquet. The unknown was run on Sunday and of course had a figure I had never done which was a 45 down full snap 1st figure too. I got nervous on the 45 deg down and didn’t pull hard enough on the snap to get it to snap and did a 1/4 snap. I just rolled back to upright and continued. I did all right until the 270 deg turn which I started to roll the wrong way but caught myself and took the break. The wind was hauling across the box and it was nearly impossible to keep any of this in the box. The short of it was I took two breaks zero’d the snap and had 4 outs for a total of 60%. But I made it almost all the way through my first unknown. I left the contest with a solid 4th place finish out of 9 competitors. So I am happy

The flight home was a bit longer due to a head wind. I was only able to get 132-134 MPH GS so it took me about 55 minutes to get home. The ceiling coming back across the bay was low about 3K so I had to cross at 2500 ft which was a little weird.

Time spent flying this weekend 3.5 hours.

Gap Seals and Slave strut boundary layer trip

I decided not to go to the contest today because they were not planning to brief until Friday at 1300. So today I went out to the airport to add elevator and rudder gap seals. I have pin hinges and therefore a big gap to fill. I use 3M 190 clear Plastic tape. The reason to use this specific tape is that it is stretchy and very good with moisture and heat. It is real easy to apply. I just leave the elevator down and apply it to the top of the elevator and then push the rudder to the left and apply it to the right side. Note be careful during your first flight In my humble opinion the surfaces become about twice as effective and your rudder inputs on landing can be tricky. Once you get used to it or get some RV gear its no problem. The main reason I did it was that I wanted help my snap out. The airplane snaps better with the more effective tail. And stops better with the more effective rudder. Also Hammers are a bit easier. I also was getting some vibration out of my left slave strut. I have had orange construction string stuck to the slave strut with white electrical tape to trip the boundary layer and keep the struts from fluttering. This worked for awhile but I have always had an issue with the left slave strut. I decided to flip the string to the other side and see how that works. Turns out it works just fine. I took it out to 200 MPH and no vibrations all is well and now I can ferry to the contest no worries.

Intermediate and Sportsman Known

So in my preparation for the Wildwood Acroblast I wanted to keep flying Intermediate because there was still a chance that might try it at the contest. But I also wanted to fly sportsman just in case I flew that at the contest. I flew pretty good so I decided to have my Intermediate free signed. I also did a new true airspeed calc and with the wash and wax I was getting 156 MPH. So a wash and wax was good for 5 MPH or about 4.25 knots which doubles what the CAFE foundation flight test http://cafefoundation.org/v2/pdf_cafe_reports/Wax%20Job%20with%20PICT.pdf

Flying and Washing the Plane

So I wasn’t able fly on Saturday. So on Sunday I flew some more Intermediate and then I washed the plane. I haven’t washed the plane in 2.5 years, basically that last time I washed the plane It was in pieces. So I washed the plane and waxed the top of the bottom wings and all the edges that might get bugs.

Flying

Did some more flying today. Started running through the intermediate sequences again maneuver by maneuver Plane is running great. It looks like I will compete at Cape May or IAC 52’s Wildwood Acroblast. I was going to compete in intermediate this year but with the gear mod running over by a bit I don’t have the practice. Oh well I will just fly Sportsman for this contest and then see if I want to fly Intermediate at Kathy Jaffe.

Flight time today 0.7 hours

More flying and Plane is running good

Flew some more today weather was nice and cool and the engine was pulling hard. I had decided today I was going to do some upright spins since I hadn’t done any for awhile and I hadn’t yet done them with the new gear. They recover quite quickly no problems either side. I then did some looping and rolling and started to practice some of the intermediate sequence maneuvers separately. After that I flew some hammers 1/2 roll up half roll down, humpties, and cubans. I finished off the evening by a cool down sight seeing jaunt over to Leonardtown and then did a Stop and go, a go around/low pass and 1 more stop and go. Every thing is running well.

Flight time today 0.7 hrs total time since rebuild 64.49 hrs

Hum…Over with, Problem solved

Well good news. When I took off I was getting about 2525 – 2550 RPM on take off and the aircraft seemed to to jump off the ground and is back to climbing like a banshee. On approach there was no more popping like I had induction leaks so I think the culprit was the induction pipe flange gasket wasn’t quite sealed. I flew around for a bit just to build some confidence in the engine. Firewalling the engine I was able to 3100 RPM straight and level about what I am used to. Now for the real test what is the New True airspeed at 3500 FT at 2700 RPM. Before it was 142 MPH Now I am getting 151.7 MPH. This was using the fly N, S, E, W and average the GPS ground speed readings. So a 10 MPH gain not bad but not quite what I was hoping for. I’m not incredibly sure that my true was 142 so not a great comparison. I did some akro and then did about 6 touch and goes. My Buddy Kurt was taxiing out just when I was about ready to quit and so I waited for him to take off. We did some form work which was a blast. I usually fly form with a friend flying a S-1C. He like to fly form slower and my plane just doesn’t really like it that much. This time my buddy Kurt who has an S-1S was able to keep the speed up to a reasonable level and the form work was way easier. For the final pass we did a 500′ Tight form right echelon with him pulling up on the break and I breaking left just after he pulled up look awesome from the ground so I hear. Any way great day loads of fun.

Flight time today 0.9 hours.