Netters,
I'm clipping a large portion of an e-mail to Willie Wilson rather than retype it all. I'll follow up with more actual performance numbers and observations as I progress through the flight testing. My biggest first observation is that I'm happy I put a speed brake on this thing. It is one slick airplane. It flies just as I expected it to. By the way, that picture of me grinning is "after the flight". Can you tell I was happy? Larry Flesner ---_______________________________________________ N211LF has "officially" taken to the air! It happened Friday afternoon about 3:30PM. I had corrected my write-ups and managed to build some temp wing attach covers and decided it was time to fly. This would be my second "first flight" in two different airplanes in two days as I did the first flight on a Zenair 601 with a Harley motorcycle engine on Thursday. But that's another whole story. I taxied out to the runway, did a fast idle taxi for about 1000 feet and then taxied back for engine run-up. After double checking my check list I realized I couldn't put it off any longer. My only real concern was the landing at the end of the flight. Throwing caution to the wind I lined up on the runway and started to feed in power. It was rolling straight so after 200 feet or so I brought the power up to max. It got light rather quickly and I could feel it trying to drift to the left from the 3 to 4 mph right crosswind so I eased the stick back and I was airborne. My first thought was "DA*N, you've done it now". I held a steady shallow climb and passing the end of the 4000 foot runway I finally realized it was going to fly and glanced at the ASI. I was climbing at 100K's and getting 750 fpm climb rate. I held that to about 2000 feet as I circled the field. I was only getting about 2200 rpm from the engine and that concerned me but the power was smooth. I may have too much prop. I brought the power back to hold the speed down and flew circles for a bit to check out the handling. It seemed the ball wanted to go to the right but I think some of it was due to my big foot. It takes so little to throw the ball off center. In level flight when I let go of the stick the right wing starts down after 2 or 3 seconds and it starts a gentle right turn. I'm wondering if I need to set my engine thrust maybe 1 degree left or place a fixed tab on the wing beyond the aileron. It flew well with all controls centered. With the power back to hold 100 to 110 K's I realized I was only running 1600 rpm! I climbed to 3500 and let it stretch it's legs for about 30 seconds and the ASI came right around to 135K's and the rpm came up to 2500. I may see my 160mph when I get wheel pants to cover those big 600X6's hanging out on those 30 inch gear legs. I throttled back and did a bit of slow flight. I was down to 60 K's indicated and it felt like I had full control so I picked that as my target airspeed for "over the numbers" on landing. I brought the power back and did some shallow turns while decending back to the airport. My main concern was slowing it down and getting it back on the ground. I hadn't tried the speed brake yet and didn't plan to do so until the second flight. I set up for landing by flying a fairly wide pattern. Crossing the numbers at about 30 feet I could tell I was a bit fast so I did a go-around. I went back to 1600 feet, slowed down and tried the speed brake. Bringing it down a bit at a time I started to get mild airframe buffet at less than half down but it didn't seem to get any worse at full down (near 90 degrees) and it brought my speed down nearly 10K's when deployed. I decided to use it on the second approach. I made another wide pattern, set up a stable approach, and adjusted power as needed. This one looked a lot better. I rode it all the way down to the flare. I leveled off a bit high but held it there. It started to settle and and I continued to hold the nose up. Video showed the tailwheel touching with the mains about 2 feet off the runway so I got a very short bounce when they hit. I have 30 inch gear legs so you can imagine the AOA this thing was holding. The bounce looked to be about 6 inches or so. It settled down and so did I after I realized I was safely on the ground again. They say your first landing will be your best on your homebuilt. I hope that's not the case with this one. I managed to kiss the 601 on the day before. Once I get comfortable with the landings this thing is going to be a blast. Now if the weather will just clear.
