Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flying, Travelogues
The second trip in as many weekends (I know we’re spoilt…) took us to the south of France. Unfortunately, though, the weather was pretty crappy all weekend and the poor reliability of weather forecasts beyond 3hrs was demonstrated in nice details… Anyway, we made the best of it :-)
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flying, Travelogues
Took advantage of a few days off during end of May for the first extended trip with the RV. In short, the perfect airplane for travel. Managed all kinds of interesting weather, complicated airspaces and customs paperwork. The RV was always reliable and dependable.
First, visited the guys behind the moving-map software we use in the plane: http://www.pocketfms.com/ at Lelystad, Netherlands.
Then flew to Düsseldorf (EDDL) to pick up the girlfriend flying in on Airline as she had to work until Thursday before the weekend.
Bad weather had us change our plans and we decided to fly to Hamburg instead. Visited the awesome “Miniatur Wunderland”, a large model railroad world with all kinds of technological and modelling attractions. http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/
They recently completed a model version of the Hamburg Airport, some videos can be seen on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MiWuLaTV “Tagebuch” Episodes highly recommended.
After a spontaneous and surprise visit with friends we flew to Damme (EDWC), which hosts an annual European RV Flyin. Due to the weather, turnout was nothing to write home about, still met some interesting people and could talk “RV” for a few hours :-) http://www.edwc.de/
On Saturday night, we flew to Bonn Hangelar. Staying and visiting with friends. Had an awesome non-RV time. After the F1 race on Sunday, took our host for a local ride, then we headed back home. Stopping at Mannheim City for customs reasons. Highly recommended airport for this purpose.
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Paperwork
Today, we got the final permit to fly and associated paperwork in the mail :-)
This is quite the milestone as it officially moves us out of the flight test phase and we are no longer restricted to the predetermined list of 5 “flight test helpers” as passengers. Also, we are no longer restricted to just Switzerland, just in time for the summer travel season :-)
So anybody on our (long) waiting list for an RV-ride is now free to join and enjoy the RV-grin firsthand!
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flying, Operation
A week ago, we had great weather for a flight over the mountains… Decided to fly into Samedan (LSZS), a relatively high altitude airport. The RV outperformed most aircraft, even more so than at lower altitudes :-) Don’t understand all the fuss they make about this airport, sure it’s tricky with bad weather and sure it’s hot and high in summer, but the same physics apply as everywhere else. So the knee-jerk reactions to a few fatal accidents by the regulator is basically going to make the airport unattractive for most recreational pilots. Hope this wasn’t one of the last visits, as they want to make some (expensive and superficial) training mandatory. Encouraging people to fly more (and trying to lower costs in all aspects of private flying) would do more for safety than generating even more paper and special rules here and there. It’s still only physics that will get you!
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Fellow RV's, Flight Testing, Flying, Formation
Finally, the weather cleared up after a lenghty phase of more or less unflyable weather. And when it was VMC, i was sure to work… Anyway, this 2 hour flight paid for all the idling last month… After some cruise performance tests, a short recon of Arosa (where we’ll go on a short snowboard break) i had planned to fly back to Birrfeld… Upon crossing the CTR of Altenrhein (LSZR), by pure coincidence, Chrigi Keller was taking off with their RV-6A HB-YKD… Had plenty of fuel, so let’s go for some pictures ;-) Unfortunately i was by myself and had left the camera at home. Thanks to Chrigi for once again some awesome pictures of YMT in the air. That makes him the unchallenged leader in YMT air to air photography ;-)
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Engine, Finishing, Flight Testing
Went to Langenthal (LSPL) to have the prop dynamically balanced. With the help of G. Staude (AIRLA Maintenance) we got the engine/prop from a fari 0.25ips to around 0.01-0.04 ips :-)
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flight Testing, Flying
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flight Testing, Operation
Approaching 30hrs!
Weather has been up and down recently, but we did get to fly during some awesome days.
Did the first oil change at 25hrs, not a problem.
Unfortunately, we did miss chapter D noise certification by about 1dB. We will certainly give it another try for chapter D next spring, but first we have to do proper analysis about where and how we can improve. So for now, we’re in chapter C, which essentially means slightly higher landing fees but other than that no major impact.
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flight Testing, Operation
Yesterday, we took part in the Noise Measurement at Grenchen (LSZG). Luckily, we have been progressing smoothly through the flight test phase, so we were ready for this already. There are only two events each year, one in spring and one during fall. The noise measurement is a mandatory requirement before eventually being able to get an unrestricted flight permit and being able to travel throughout Europe. The results aren’t out yet, though. Will be very interesting to see and also hoping for the quietest category D, in order to burden lower landing fees.
Also, if we miss significantly, this might mean having to reengineer the whole exhaust/muffler issue or even change props. But let’s hope this remains a worst case scenario.
Also, some great pictures from a few recent flights.
Posted by Bernhard Daenzer | Filed under Flight Testing, Operation
Just a short update and to apologize for the delay with videos and other reports…
We simply have been too busy flying :-) Something like 8 hrs in the last week… With all the planning beforehand and data evaluation afterwards, this amounts to quite a bit of work (although i hate the word “work”… it’s more like “fun”, but leaving little time for other stuff like screening and cutting videos)…
The RV-7A flies great and is everything we hoped for (and more…)