Well, we did finally get a decent day for flying, and we did get a brief flight in. But, as these things go, it was not perfect. After all of the fiddling we did with the high RPM stop, in flight it was set too high, and so on climb-out Beth was getting 2,750 RPM, but at the same time the manifold pressure gauge was reading extremely (unbelievably) low. The two combined were giving her a mild case of the goo… she didn’t want to pull the prop back much, because she was schooled to do that by MP, but she also was worried about the RPM.
This one is on me, since these are both things that we probably should’ve seen on the ground. We did check the RPM and thought it was good, but I can’t swear that I ever looked hard at the manifold pressure. Secondly, although we did have an unusually detailed pre-flight briefing and even talked through what to do if the new prop started to vibrate heavily or fail to control properly, where the best places to land out would be, and what to have on-board in case she needed to ‘land out’. But we never talked what to do if the primary instrumentation was faulty. Plan the flight, then fly the plan.
But, what did we learn? The airplane is a rocket with this prop. Jerry was kind enough to do the video for us, though he’s a rookie and we didn’t get a lot of great footage, but you can see how quick she was off of the ground. In our debrief she told she was holding her on the ground till 75 kias, because the nose was light immediately she wanted to make sure she had flying speed. Second, note how far down the runway she touches down. She was a little sloppy on final due to some birds, and from being nervous about the about the engine instrumentation, but she easily makes the mid-field turnoff. She did this without really working the brakes. Also note how easily she bleeds off the altitude on final. She was quite high and close (we’d planned to fly a tight pattern to make sure she could make the field in the event she had to problem), and the Fox came down an elevator. The prop really slows her down when you want to. Very nice. All and all the MT is doing exactly what we wanted her to… Video in the media section (and on YouTube). Check out the Picture Album.
Posted By: Brett FerrellSaturday March 10th, 2012 at 8:42 PM