NetHeads, Today I flew for 3 more hours. Mostly I just did "slow flight", playing with GPS courses, and averaging about 120 mph at 2200 rpm. I stayed up for 3 hours, and landed with half a header tank, about 4 gallons. That means I burned about 4 gallons an hour at 120 mph, but that's with the nose stuck up in the air, so it wasn't exactly trimmed for best cruise. The best thing about today's flight is that I actually KNEW how much fuel I had in the header tank at any given time. My VDO sender finally cleaned itself off (thanks to the mechanical wiping of several thousand jolts of the float) and is working perfectly! It worked when I installed it, but after the vinyl ester cured in the tank, I think the windings had a non-conductive film on it. I sure am relieved that I don't have to dig into that tank! You just don't know how nice it is to have a working fuel gauge again.
Today was an exception in that I only made exactly one landing, and it was the smoothest yet, even after three hours of flying. I'll bet the g-meter is still reading 1.0. If I hadn't heard the tires chrip, I'd have never known I was down. And it was another one after dark, so it was really smooth air. One thing I've noticed is that I never use any down trim...it's always up trim, especially when the flaps are down. My guess is that wheel pants will help remedy that, because that drag hanging way down below the thrust line is going to rotate the plane downward, requiring more up trim than I have to offer. I need to work on wheel pants. If that's not it, I still have the secret weapon, adjustable horizontal stab, but I'll wait until everything else is faired in before I consider wheelin' that one out. Another thing I'm thinking about is the possibility that my CG could stand to slide back some. The farther back, the faster it's going to be, but the more "sensitive". Right now it is far from sensitive. I spent the day doing stuff like leaning left to go left, right to go right. Even a phugoid or two, I think they're called. It's a very stable airplane, maybe even too stable! And the forward CG could account for the up trim as well. I'm going to fly with it like it is for a while longer, but then gradually slide it back with either the battery or some more fuel, or both. The weather is supposed to be just as nice for several days, so if I do 2 hours tomorrow and 2 hours the next day, I'm good to go wherever I want, and carry passengers... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net --------------------------------------------------------------
