Saturday I got to the airport around 11 AM and ballasted the plane for a mid-weight mid CG run. That's 99.6" to 99.9" CG, at a starting weight of 1900 lbs. (still 255 lb. below my placarded gross weight, but 250 lbs. higher than the first round of flights). I borrowed a bunch of lead bricks from a friend - the 2.5 gallon water jugs took up way too much room, and leaked too easily.
PT took a couple hundred feet more runway to get off the ground than previously - maybe 2000 ft at most, but I know I didn't get off the ground as soon as I could, as I was feeling out the elevator response at the higher weight. The climbout was a bit wimpier than I was used to, but still on the order of 1K ft./min.
I ran the 120, 110, and 100 mph climbs on the only flight I took, and put off the stalls till the second flight, which will probably be later this week sometime. The landing was less than stellar - I wasn't sure if it would flare at the higher weight, so I came in a bit fast, tried the flare (which it did, so it seems that the flaring is only an issue at very forward CG's) and then landed about 3 ft. off the ground. The nose gear bounces pretty good from up there -).
I spent Saturday afternoon under the hood (whoops - cowling) designing a small scoop (1" x 4") to live just to the right of the gascolator, which will connect to a plenum on top of the oil cooler with 1.75" SCAT tubing. Since my CHT's are fine (never more than 400 deg. F in any climb at full throttle), I figure I can steal a bit of air from the NACA scoop and send it directly to the oil cooler. I'll lay up the scoop, plenum, and some turbulators (as described by Eric Westland) to put just aft of the landing brake to increase the energy in the air going into the NACA scoop.
Sunday (although an amazingly beautiful day) did not see any flying. We took a hike to the top of Mt. Monadnock (the most climbed mountain in the world, I'm lead to believe) and watched a few other planes fly circles around the peak.
There's no Protocol for this flight - see Flight Test Protocol 10.
| [Zeitlin's Cozy MKIV Information] [Zeitlin's Cozy MKIV Logbook] [Cozy MKIV Information] |
Copyright © 2002, All Rights Reserved, Marc J. Zeitlin