Sunday, May 7, 2017

Finally got to see Crater lake today

I was supposed to fly over to my dad's this weekend for his birthday but for some reason Montana doesn't want to join the spring craze...bad weather forced me to take my adventure elsewhere.  So, Jeff and I decided to fly to Crater Lake and then stop at Sunriver OR on the way back for some lunch.

I had an interesting thing happen to me on the flight today, actually I had a couple of interesting things happen.  First I had my lowest sustained fuel flow yet in cruise.  I climbed up to 15,500' to see how the new induction was going to work.  I kept the throttle wide open which is theoretically the most efficient position and then I leaned to about 40 degrees lean of peak EGT.  After about 30 minutes of flight I found that the fuel flow was pretty stable at about 6.1 GPH and airspeed was about 150 kTAS with 2400 RPM.  Then I pulled the throttle back about a quarter of an inch and watched the fuel burn come down to 4.5 gph with a 145 KTAS and 2350 RPM.  Holy cow that was getting me about 42 MPG!

The second interesting thing to happen was my GMC-305 autopilot controller decided to put on a Christmas show.  It was blinking constantly during flight and nothing I did would make it stop.  Even after a power cycle the lights came back on and went to blinking.  I emailed Garmin and we will see what they say.  Here is a short video of the process.  https://youtu.be/EJFl4oVPUB8



This was a picture I took at full throttle.  6.2 GPH and 148 KTAS.  The fuel flow and air speed will drift up and down a little.
Here is one of the many pictures I took after I pulled the throttle about a quarter of an inch.  145 ktas and 4.7 GPH

Another picture of the same stats.
I took this picture so I could remember what the throttle/mixture settings were.

Oh yea my head wasn't in the cockpit all day....  This is mount Hood as we were headed south.





A few pictures of crater lake as I circled it.




Tuesday, May 2, 2017

It's all about induction

Hello to my avid readers...both of you (thank you my dear for reading).  :-)

These past couple of weeks I have been working away on my new induction system.  As I think I mentioned Harry tried his hand on the metal lathe and produced a very nice base for the servo.  I put a little more time...and lots of plastic into the 3D printer and I think I have finally come up with a solution that will work.  I got a chance to fly it this past weekend and there was a HUGE increase in static RPM during takeoff.  Top end is still not measured but based on what I was seeing in cruise I lost nothing and gained a lot!


Jeff joined Amy and I for a trip up to Friday Harbor a Friday or two ago.  On the way back the sun was setting and it was beautiful out so Jeff formed up on my wing for a couple of pictures.  This is the best of the lot...sure wish my camera (IPhone 7) could do this justice!

This is the base piece.  The shiny aluminum ring you see is what Harry made and the plastic ring is the mount for both the air filter and the filter shroud.

This is a view just before I put the cowl on for test runs.

Perspective is a bit off here but what you are looking at is the new induction system from under the engine looking up.

This is how it fits in the cowling...almost perfect!