Friday afternoon, August 30th, I went to the airport and changed the oil. I thought that possibly part of my oil temperature issue was oil quantity, as only 4 quarts drained from the crankcase. Hmmm. I filled the engine with 4 quarts, let it settle, and then marked the dipstick with a file edge at that point. I then added a quart and marked the stick at 5, 6, 7, and 8 quarts. I cleaned the stick off well each time so as not to get the aluminum filings into the crank -). Turns out that if oil quantity was a part of the oil temp issue, it was a small one, but at least it's good to have fresh, clean oil in the thing now, and to know exactly how much I've got.
I also fixed the landing brake. I decided to try the dead stock attachment system one last time and see if it was just my nicopress technique. I took special care, put on two sleeves, and pulled the cables tight. I __THINK__ I've got good joints..... we'll see. The oil change and LB work killed the whole afternoon, and I didn't get a chance to fly (on a beautiful day....).
Saturday morning I headed out and spent most of the morning installing Jim Hamm's GPS/Navaid "Smart Coupler" - didn't quite finish, though. I also installed Alex Strong's quick release modification for his pitch trim system which he asked me to test out. I believe it will help greatly in reducing the time and effort needed to remove the canard.
Next, I ballasted PT for a 99.6" - 99.9" CG at 1650 lb., and headed up for the first of the OFFICIAL climb tests (and stall tests). Same protocol as before, just at a weight that I can achieve at three CG positions (97.5", 99.7", and 102.5"). Do the middle one first -). During the first flight, I measured climb rates at 130 mph and 120 mph, and also did stall testing at 0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 degrees of bank. In the second flight, I measured climb rates at 110 and 90 mph.
On Sunday (that's today) I went out to FIT, finished up the "Smart Coupler" installation (one wire to solder), and put some air in the tires. I then did the last series of climb tests at this weight/CG combination, at 80 and 100 mph.
BTW, the landing brake seems to be working fine so far, cross my fingers -).
I'll publish all the results of the stall/climb tests when they're all done and I've performed all the required data reduction and made some graphs. Hopefully they'll look vaguely useful -).
Here's a representative data sheet for the climb tests - Flight Test Protocol for flights 10 through n, excluding 11.
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