First flight

Dave Hyde wrote:

I (finally) made the first flight of my RV-4 today.
12 years of building, 0.3 hours of flight time g
Everything was pretty much as expected. After
quite a bit of thought I decided to make it short
and circle a few times over the field just under the
STL class B floor. The temptation to leave the pattern
and actually do something was strong, but I stuck to
the plan :-)


Honors are due.

You finally finished the damned thing!
That, in itself, is exceptional.
And a sucessful first flight to boot.

I think your "first" first flight sticks with you like your
first solo does. You will remember it forever.
The bold excitement of it, the holy terror of it.
The humble/giddy/amazing mix of feelings.
Heady stuff, huh!

I'm impressed with your discipline in staying in the pattern.
Especially early on, and most especially in high performance
machines, that self discipline will keep you safe and warm.
I mention this, not to spoil the mood, but to remind everyone
that this is no place for complacency or carelessness.

Plan the flight.
Fly the plan.

Congradulations, Dave.
Ya done real good.

And - ta da -
You are now a full fledged experimental test pilot.
How about that!

Richard Lamb

And what type of aircraft might this be? I'd like to make sure I avoid
building one (no offense).

Daniel wrote:

Oh God, the first flight!!! I damn near died the first flight on my plane.
Everything looked OK. and all I was planning was a VERY short liftoff and
land on the 5000' strip I trailered it to. Just a quick off the ground and
back down, just the least I could do and actually fly!! Well, I pushed the
throttle open, no sweat. IAS at 55; rotate..... OH MY GOD NO!!!!! I was
instantly subjected to the worst series of up and down oscillations ever! If
not for the seatbelts (way too loose) I'd have been thrown out. I hit my
head on the canopy many times, some hard, some not so bad. Finally, I was
back on the ground, I taxiied out the rest of the runway and back to my
start point. On video there was nothing to see, the plane rose, flew a few
hundred feet and landed, looked very "to plan".

I re-rigged the tail to provide less travel, and sat longing for a beer for
while and decided to give it one more try. I really didn't want to, I
seriously considered finding an expert on this plane and letting him have a
go. The secind trip was not fun but was less painful. I called it a day.
After a few of these short trips I had started to gain a sense of control
and have since learned to fly my plane. I have now accumulated over 1000
flights hrs and still love the plane but the first flight was a true
*******.

"Paul Folbrecht" wrote in message
ink.net...
And what type of aircraft might this be? I'd like to make sure I avoid
building one (no offense).


I deliberately avoided that because all the faults in the construction and
rigging were of my own making, and there were many. I built the craft from
plans without much advice or help, the only advisor I saw during
construction had no familiarity with the craft. There was nobody in my area
that had any familiarity with the plane to help with rigging and I made a
lot of errors. The first was even trying with so little good knowledge or
advice. Sun N Fun the next spring allowed me to meet others with the same
plane and one of the fellows came to my strip and helped out. The craft had
done about 15 hours by then but it required a lot of work, including
replacing and inspecting parts damaged in the first few flights. The
transformation was amazing and really taught me a lot about how I should
have proceeded. In any case it was only the lack of direction and experience
that caused my problems, it would probably not happen with the EAA help
available today. Unless there are other people as stupid as I was when I
started out.

Dave Hyde wrote:

I (finally) made the first flight of my RV-4 today.
12 years of building, 0.3 hours of flight time g
snip
Dave 'wired' Hyde


Bravo, tell me more :-)

Gary

Awesome, dude. Congrats. Gotta start on that Skybolt now.

Dave Hyde wrote:
I (finally) made the first flight of my RV-4 today.

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 19:02:29 GMT, Dave Hyde wrote:

I (finally) made the first flight of my RV-4 today.
12 years of building, 0.3 hours of flight time g
Everything was pretty much as expected.
For those of you still building, keep at it. I can
finally say it was worth every hour and dollar I spent.
It was fun building, now comes the *really* fun part.

Dave 'wired' Hyde


An inspiration to us all Dave, congratulations.

Corky Scott

Hey Dave!

We hopped my new parasol today.
- about 15 seconds flying time!

This is probably the "other end of the spectrum", but that's the
way we've done it for years.

Instead of blasting off into the wild blue yonder, we start out
by just flying down the runway. Get a few hops on it before going
around the pattern.

Never got over half throttle(!)
Lift off at about 38 mph was very smooth.
Level at 10 feet at about 40-45 mph.

Ailerons are a bit mushy right now, but they are not sealed yet.
Two pieces of duct tape will make a big difference.

Uh, what else can you tell in 15 seconds?

Elevator incidence (decalage) seems ok.
But won't really know until it gets up to speed.
Stick seemed about neutral right now.

Controls are all very light (well duh).
Pitch response is positive and immediate.
But there was no tendency to diverge.

Also, typical of this breed, very little pressure gradient on the
elevator. In other words, the pressure on the stick doesn't increase
as the stick comes back. It's a finger tip stick.

And, underpowered - it is not...

Great Plains 2180 with Tennessee 62x29 prop turns 3000 static RPM.
750 pounds flying weight
125 sq ft wing area - stock Clark Y airfoil
Roughly 5 pounds per square foot wing load and 10 pounds per HP?!


Some things to work on -

The tailwheel leg is too limber. May need a helper?
Or thicker leg?

It needs a little more rudder travel. (Texans need a lot of tail)

The carb float doesn't seem to shut off flow very well(?)
I need to look at the float level or ?.

And finish the center section cover panels, fix the paint on the
cowling, install a T&B and VSI for test flying, figure out some
brakes for this thing, cuz it NEEDS them,
on and on and on...

These things are never really finished, are they?

Richard

lessee, $5000 for 15 seconds flying works out to what?
$1.2 millon per hour?

Richard Lamb wrote:

We hopped my new parasol today.
- about 15 seconds flying time!

Woohoo! This is your own design, right?
Congratulations!

Dave 'leaving the nest' Hyde

Congratulations Dave! A little gasoline on a tooth brush will get
that control stick paint out from under your fingernails, and your knees
will stop knocking in about 2 weeks.....;-)

This is probably the "other end of the spectrum", but that's the
way we've done it for years.

Was alodyning the rudder skins and put them on some hooks on a
clothesline to rinse 'em off. Wind came up and blew 'em off, so that's
the "first flight" of the RV-10. Now *that's* the other end of the spectrum!

Ed "one yellow finger" Wischmeyer