Sunday, February 22, 2015

It's ALIVE!!

Big week this past week!  The airplane is on its own power!  With the help of my friend Jeff N1605A came to life on Saturday the 21st of February.  I will post a video soon (video is on Facebook now) of the event but it took several false starts before it eventually fired up and ran nicely.  After shutting down, inspecting for leaks and letting it cool off for a few hours Harry stopped by and was nice enough to do a pretty thorough inspection of the airplane.  Then he twisted my arm into starting it up again and taxiing it around a bit.  WOO HOO...it moved on its own power...next step the FAA inspection for the air worthiness certificate.  Its getting real folks!

I have to stop real quick and say how much I appreciate all the help I have received from friends and family both this week.  Amy has been a model of patience with me being gone so much getting the airplane ready.  Jeff and Harry have given me hours of their time to get this airplane ready to fly and I can't tell you how much that helps, not only from a task perspective but from a peace of mind perspective.  They have both built and maintained their own RV's for years and having experienced eyes on my airplane is invaluable!

On with this weeks pictures.


This weeks task list..notice the first engine start category is gone!
First task of the week was to weight the airplane so I could calculate the weight and balance.

Jeff tying the airplane to his Suburban
Then there is a list of several small tasks that got taken care of this week.  This is a picture of one of them, the firewall pass-through had to be sealed up. 

The new Comm radio had to be wired up and installed.

And finally, Harry and I checked the compression on the engine as part of my initial engine/airframe log entry stating that I have completed all of the tasks outline in the FAR's for an airworthy airplane.