Van's RV-7A HB-YMT » Birrfeld

Greece 2011: Klagenfurt LOWK to Birrfeld LSZF

Bernhard Daenzer — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:58:17 +0000

Since the weather forecast was stable and also quite nice, we decided to extend our stay at Klagenfurt by another day :-) On Sunday, when we were going to leave, the forecast had a deteriorating trend however… So we chose to depart just after checking out of the hotel around noon. Weather held up nicely and only late in the evening, the cold front approached from the west. Got to say hello to my buddies from work on the way home, crossing through the LSZH TMA, high above our apartment, in a continous descent towards Birrfeld.

What an awesome trip. And a great performance by the plane, solid numbers at even the edges of the weight and balance envelope and no technical issues to write home about :-)

Statistics
Planned Distance: 271.2 NM
Actually Flown Distance (TO to LDG): 279.4 NM
Top Ground Speed: 180.2 kts
Average Ground Speed: 140 kts
True Flight Time: 01:52
Block Time: 02:00

Greece 2011: Birrfeld LSZF to Lugano LSZA

Bernhard Daenzer — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:30:41 +0000

Sunday morning, we left Birrfeld on a short flight to Lugano, a short (and efficient) tech stop to fill the tanks with (relatively speaking) cheap AVGAS in Switzerland and comply with the required customs bureaucracy/regulations.

Statistics
Planned Distance: 101.8 NM
Actually Flown Distance (TO to LDG): 101.5 NM
Top Ground Speed: 182 kts
Average Ground Speed: 145.5 kts
True Flight Time: 00:42
Block Time: 00:50

First Engine Start Successful!

Bernhard Daenzer — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 10:29:46 +0000



(Press the full screen button on the bottom right of the video for high quality)

Last Friday, we celebrated a major milestone :-)

The engine ran successfully for the first time on the airplane!

The start went very well, which I credit to the ECI Fuel Injection and the P-Mag ignition.

As always there were minor snags we had to debug. First, the alternator wasn’t charging. Turns out there are 2 different wiring schemes for the exact same alternator/plug style and by some very straightforward logic, for the alternator field to power, you have to wire a red power wire to a green one ;-) Obvious, yeah right…
And the second problem was that initially, the engine was only running on the electronic ignition and didn’t ignite on the traditional mag circuit. Turns out that we had reinstalled the mag on the wrong cycle, even though the timing marks were basically correct after we took it down to perfrom the service bulletin on the brushes. Anyway, it’s now all sorted out and we’re totally stoked :-)

Working on paperwork

Bernhard Daenzer — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 09:36:02 +0000

Made good progress towards first engine start. Which we were unable to do as it also rained out a planned full day of work.

So we still got to do some stuff inside the hangar, such as documenting the various control deflections and measuring distances.

Move to Birrfeld LSZF

Bernhard Daenzer — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:28:20 +0000

What a great day!

With a lot of help from several friends, we managed to move the airplane to the airfield and even start final assembly.
Since we have a few days off, we should be able to get quite some things done.

Nice to see everything come together so well!

Hangar crane mount installed

Bernhard Daenzer — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:19:04 +0000

Last saturday, Markus came to Birrfeld to install the finished hangar crane mount.

http://www.flyvans.com/subproj/hangarkran.html for some more information regarding the project.

It’s almost ready to take on the plane once it’s assembled. Only minor rigging and adapting will be required.