N886MJ took to the skies again today. Beautiful morning, no wind, clear skies and 45°. I taxied out and firewalled her. She jumped off the ground as if she had been begging to get back in the air. I was at WOT on takeoff and climbed out at 90 MPH. I was indicating an incredible 1800 FPM climb. I don't even believe that...my VSI must be out of whack. The engine felt stronger than it ever had. I had requested to the tower that I stay in the pattern and I reached 500' AGL for my cross wind turn quicker than I ever had before. I was making the turn just off the end of the 5,800' runway. Anyway, as I turned downwind I was just about at pattern altitude and everything felt great. Halfway down downwind I called the tower and requested a turn out to the north with a climb to 4000'. Wow, I really got to 4000' fast and was tooling around there at 138 mph true airspeed. Then it happened....the engine hiccupped and started running rough. I turned back toward the airport as I was about 7 miles out and only 10 minutes into the flight. The engine then seemed to smooth out and I called in a landing. The tower cleared me to land and I made a smooth one. I taxied back to the hangar and did a compression test on 1, 3 and 5. Number 1 & 3 both had a great 78/80 and number 5 had 74/80. I don't know what caused that hiccup. Water in the fuel maybe? The tanks were less than half full of 100LL and the temps here have varied from 20° to upper 50's since I put the fuel in the tanks two weeks ago. No, I did not check my drains before flight. That is the one thing I forgot. Anyway, I flew for 20 minutes total.
Mark Jones (N886MJ) Wales, WI Visit my web site: www.flykr2s.com E-mail: flyk...@wi.rr.com
