We had plans on flying the RV on its first big cross country to go from home, Poplar Grove Il to Alliance NE to see the grand daughter celebrate Christmas. The plans were delayed due to low ceilings at home with light snow showers. Waiting patiently all day to see some improvement we ended up in the late afternoon to make the call we are good to go. We finished loading up the baggage, already had fuel done and jumped in. We would have to fly low for about 100 miles to avoid the ceilings but was doable staying VFR and in the daylight. So off we went with an uneventful take off except we had a faint smell of burning tire right after that wheels left the ground. Now it was really windy here at home and a significant crosswind so I initially choked it up to me maybe dragging a tire as we lifted off. As we climbed up and leveled off at 1500′ my Dynon system announced “Electrical Current” and drew my eyes to the EMS section of the screen. Alternator AMP’s were at 1.5 and the main battery was draining slowly. OK I thought the alternator went off line due to all the stuff we had on like seat heaters. So I reduced the load and rest the ALT field switch. The AMPO’s went up for a few seconds and then trickled down to the 1.5 AMP area. After doing this a couple of times I decided to return home and do some investigating. We landed and put the RV. back in the hangar. Tricia decided that she would do a Christmas dinner for just us and we would make for Nebraska tomorrow either in the RV or on United. So I ripped into the cowl to se what was up, hoping for an easy fix. After removing the upper and lower cowl I expected to see a broken belt but it was in great shape and no damage. As I squeezed on the belt to see how tight it was I noticed that the alternator actually moved a little. What I found was the pivot bolt that holds the lower part of the alternator on had loosened up about a 1/16″. The tensioning bolt that I tightened and safety wired was still tight and secure. I’m thinking vibration and caused what I thought was a tight connection to loosen enough for the alternator to move and shorten the distance between the two pulls just enough for the belt to start to slip. That was the initial burning tire smell and the cause of the low AMP’s. So I removed the safety wire and tightened the pivot belt so I could adjust the proper tension. Then I torqued both bolts and safety wired the tensioning bolt. I pulled the RV out of the hangar and did an engine run up while loading up the electrical systems to put a good draw on the alternator. Everything worked great and no electrical issues were noted. So I put the cowl back on and secured everything for the night. We got up early Christmas morning and jumped in the RV and made our way to Nebraska. What would normally take 12-13 hours to drive we did in 5.1 hours with a stop in Iowa for gas and a restroom break. The return trip with tailwinds and the same stop for fuel took us 3.6 hours. This thing is a magic carpet allowing you to make great time on trips.
Category Archives: Flying
A little Saturday Flying
We needed to deliver a couple vinyls I cut down to our fellow RV-8 pilots in C09 so that was all of an excuse to fly we needed. We joined up with another fellow RV-8 builder, Tom Ellis, and did a couple low passes for the gang.
My First Passenger
I finished up Phase 1 which consists of 40 flight hours yesterday. After making my logbook entry and fueling the RV up I took my girl T up for a two hour flight along the shore of Lake Michigan to see downtown Chicago followed by a lunch at Lake Lawn. It was a awesome day!
Engine Break-In
My new engine from AeroSport Power, IO-375-M1S, needed 15 to 20 hours of break-in. This required a high power setting, 25″ of manifold power, and 2300 RPM. They didn’t want me varying the power settings any more than needed, like for things like slow flight, multiple take-off’s & landings and such. So I spent the last 21.1 hours flying either close to my home airport or on a 200nm cross country circle that kept me within the 40nm radius I’m restricted to during the first 40 hours of flight called phase 1.
Today I finished the break-in and had no issues, oil burn over this time has been less than one quart and that happened earlier in the break-in period.
Part of the engine I needed to pay attention too was the temperatures of the cylinder’s. So I kept an hourly log of those and put them to a graph. I’m guessing that where you see the lowering of the average temps around the 4th hour is where the piston rings finally seated themselves but not for sure. Either way I’m glad this period is over and I can now move on to the tasks that I need to complete so I can get out of phase 1 and stretch the legs of this awesome machine!
10″ Dynon Screen Issue
Hobbs: 8.2
On my first flight just after the run up I had my 10″ Dynon touch display flashed all black, rebooted then flashed all green and rebooted again to a normal screen. It was intermittent and all back to normal without any other issues. That continued for the next two flight however at the end of my last 3.2 hour it did it again in flight but this time it froze on the main screen with the Dynon logo with a line of text at the top “Boot Error, Please Restart…Contact Dynon Avionics if Error Persists”. I email and called Dynon and they reached back out to me the next day. Unfortunately it sounds like a hardware internal issue and they need it shipped back. So I removed it, boxed it up and shipped it overnight via FedEx. The other down side is this unit is out of warranty since I bought it some years ago so that I could do my initial testing of my wiring harnesses. I know this risk and was willing to take it as I didn’t want to close up the RV skins after wiring was done to find out years later that they had issues. So Dynon says its an average of 10 business days for turn around and a flat $450 fee. I’m hoping for its quick return! I can still fly using the 7″ screen which is why I have two so if one dies the second will be a backup. I just won’t venture too far away from home, I’m still b reading in the engine and have 8.3 hours on it all ready. I needed to cover some of my larger oil cooler as with the cold temps here in Chicago I’m only getting 167° while in cruise and I need 180°. So I will make some plates of different sizes and see if I can come up with the right combo.