Today, with Sabien we stayed a ggod part of the day at the hangar. We reinstalled the OAT probe. It worked for part of the flight but the stopped giving valid indications, some more troubleshooting to do. During the flight I noted that the VOR was working, I made some performance measures and opened the speed range. I could fly at 50 KIAS without stalling and the throttled up to 164 KIAS. I made two landings. I lowered the approach speed for the seconf landing but I'm not really convinced.
Just before Christmas I managed to perform a third flight. I checked the speed indication which are precise enough to go on with further expanding the flight enveloppe. I have the OAT not working and no reception on the VOR, I'll have to troubleshoot this before next flight. This is a short video of the take-off
Today I flew almost one hour still checking engine reliability and handling. I did some slow flight but no stalls. I checked the systems and fousn a few small problems, not affecting the flying capacities. I finished the flight with a touch and go, so two landings today. This is the Google Earth trace of the flight
Today, the weather was fine so I went to the field with Guillaume, Sabine was working. We installed the cowlings, started the engines to warm the oil. I then préflighted the aircraft for a last time and under the eyes of fellow builders Remy, fréderec and Michele began taxying.
Take off was uneventfull, I climbed in a right turn over the field to 3000ft. There I assessed handling, the plane flies straight, rudder use will have to be looked at a bit more carefully. I checked speed indications against GPS ground speed. Then slowed down to 75kts with 1/3 flaps and to 65kts with full flaps. I did some turns at this speed and the cleaned up accelerated with full throttle to 140kts (without pants). I gently descended to a left hand downwind, established on long final with full flaps and speed at 70kts. I reduced to 65kts approaching the threshold. Landing was smooth but I should have held the nose up a bit longer. I then taxied back with an big RV-grin. This is a video of the take-off. Guillaume will do some editing with all the stuff he has available.
I was at the controls, but a lot more people near or far had a hand at today's event. Many thanks to
