No flying yesterday, but to make up for it we got 2.3 in today. Up next on the plan was max gross weight testing. Beth picked up a parachute rigger from our airport and met Jerry and I over at Butler County for the testing (it’s runway is 5,500′ with a 750′ overrun and 100′ wide, whereas ours is only 4,500′ and 60′ wide). We gradually loaded up, and determined to limit the aircraft based on take-off roll, as you need some runway to be able to abort a takeoff. We’ll loaded up to 2,800 pounds with a roll of just over 2,600′ (2,700 density altitude), and called that enough. The ship clearly would have managed our target 3000 pounds, and would have about half the runway to abort on if need be, but we’ll hold off on that until we have the constant-speed propeller.
Posted By: Brett FerrellWednesday August 20th, 2008 at 7:05 PM