(warning old post) (long flight never happened) I don't even know where to start

Well it's certainly been a long time since any update to this blog. I'm currently at about 50 x hours and have had so many ups and downs it's not funny. I hope I am finally getting on top of the issues I've had so will see from now. I have had a very unfortunate thing happen and the turbo has had to go back for inspection. Was flying okay, then had a break for 2 weeks, after a pre flight run up, found no boost. Long story short is the turbo has been sent back to Sonex for an inspection and report.

On a positive note the 50 x hours flying the plane has been soooooo good. The performance of the Sonex turbo when on song and solo just does it for me every time I take off. The plane flies like a little go kart you strap on.  I am eager to finish my Aero endorsement now and try that also when I get her flying again.  We are coming into winter here now and the best flying season. Smooth cold air with beautiful scenery when its all green.

I have a 37 x hour round trip across Australia and back planned for October. I am, to say the least, eagerly awaiting the return of the Turbo to get some hours back happening in the air. I really want to see at least 25+ or more hours trouble free before I even contemplate the journey. I do plan to bring along some spares in case of the unforeseen but hope not to need them. Now that I have the engine running cool and running well with the latest service bulletins I really hope for some good trouble free flying. I think some of the issues I've had date back to early in the first 5 hours when things ran hot and perhaps cooked some electronic components however I guess time will tell. I never see over 380-390 on climb out and the cruise temps are usually around 320-360 in the heat of summer so winter flying will be even better regarding temps.

With this down time I have been doing some Mods that I have been eager to do. I am in the process of adding the AUX tank behind the seat and dual hydraulic brakes. I made the biggest ass of myself landing at a local fly in with a really strong crosswind. Heaps of planes landed before me and to be honest some also did not. I did however just plan to see how it went and go around and back to base if need be. The problem wasn't landing but in the roll out. I had heaps of rudder authority all the way to the ground but apon touchdown had absolutely no control over the tail wheel and veered off the runway around a runway marker and thankfully back on the strip to taxi back to the parking area in front of  reasonably sized crowd red faced. That next day I ordered a second master cylinder and am in the process of fitting dual independent brakes. A second lever would have made me look like an absolute pro and I won't be letting that mistake happen to me again. The Aux tank will give me the range needed to make the big hops required to get across this country of ours. I have two big legs to carry out of about 3.5 hours each and the best flight I've had to date in regard to fuel with the standard tank is 2.8 hours plus reserve at around 110 kts throttled back to minimize fuel use. The extra fuel will give me a nice little buffer so I don't have to sweat about head winds and if I'll actually make it. I will be flying solo and the MTOW will be well under.

One more Step

Okay, I'm getting excited for the weekend. I really just can't wait for the wheels to lift off the ground and get that Sonex feeling again. My parts have all arrived today, and, earlier than expected.

Oil lines, Oil and the remote oil filter housing. I'll pick up an oil filter tomorrow and hopefully do this addition tomorrow after work. Double check everything on Friday then either fly Friday after work or Saturday. Well that's the plan anyway.

BACK IN BIZ BABY :)

Cowling vents and heat shields

So after melting various bits and bobs in the engine bay I finally installed some vents to vent the hot air after shutdown. I have not painted them yet but I think they look ok.

I was going to go to the trouble of sinking them in the cowling flush and so on but thought I'd trial them and maybe one day do that or probably just paint them first and fly till all the bugs are sorted. They are just a vent I bought on ebay, plastic and screwed onto the cowling. I have flown about 4 hours with these on and have noticed no change in engine temps during flight but after shut down, if you hold your hand over the vent, you can feel the hot air venting. This makes me smile.

Before I added these vents I had lots of trouble. I don't know if this caused the MGL RDAC to fail but I guess I'll never know.

I have also added some very crude looking (at this stage) heat shield over the engine mounts and trigger modules.

The heat shields are just made with some 6061 scrap I had and stainless zip ties and the insulation is a sticky backed  sheet that I have just stuck on and crudely moulded onto the accessory plate. I have also double wrapped the exhausts with two layers of exhaust wrap now too.  Since doing these small things my engine mounts have not needed changing and they seem to have stopped compressing even after the shortest of flights.

This pic shows the near new engine mounts after about 4 x hours flight. They had melted and crushed up and the pin was rubbing badly on the accessory plate. You can feel it in flight when they have worn or melted down as the engine begins to vibrate badly telling you that's the end of flying for that day mister.  Oh don't worry about the horrible brown leaks down the lower engine block, it's not oil , it's permatex from the initial engine build :)

 A vain attempt to add a washer or two to keep them tight, you can see how much the back one has compressed so I fitted a new front rubber and some washers to try and limp me through another flight.

Probably hard to see but the pin was rubbing on the accessory plate. New mount time again.

An indicator of how much it sagged as the prop rubbed on the cowling and scratched the paint,,, wasn't happy at all.


These lower three pics show the trigger modules and how much they had swollen up like balloons due to the heat from the turbo after shutdown, I assume, as inflight they have air running over them. I expect it was just the radiant heat when turned off cooking them or maybe in flight who knows. All I know is that since fitting the shield over the trigger modules they have stopped swelling. Both the top and bottom modules are swollen like this now but they aren't getting worse thankfully.  I emailed tech support early in the piece to ask about modules swelling up and was told I was the only one they had seen this happen to. As usual I guess I have done something wrong and not followed the instructions carefully enough. Anyway, it's fixed now. I will probably order 2 x new modules and another complete set of engine mounts and fit them so that now with the shielding in place the components should live long and happy lives in my cowling with the vents on the roof.

It's been a while and I apologize for what you're about to read.

Yes it sure has been some time since posting on this blog last. A million and one things have happened and not all of them good.

 To take us up to where I am at this exact moment can be summed up with the one word "Grounded" .   I had been chipping away at the hours and now have about 17 or so. Sonex released a service bulletin regarding the turbo and what needs to be done. Essentially the bulletin requires the use of only one type of oil worldwide and of course it has to be a specialist oil only made in the great US of A. That's fine, however trying to get my hands on it is rather difficult. I had quickly found out no one from the US will post it like normal freight so I had to find a supplier in Australia that had already done the importing and buy it from them. All good, I found a place and ordered the oil. So one month later and numerous contact with the supplier had them realising it had been delivered to the wrong address and they couldn't get it back from that person. That's handy. They are now thankfully sending me out another batch and I should receive it in the next week or two.

In the meantime Sonex have released another bulletin requiring the addition of a remote mounted oil filter and a mod to the turbo drain line. So here I go again and no parts suppliers in Australia seem to have this component. I have sent away for the part and the due date is 16th November to land on my doorstep. So let's call this a 2 x month grounding. With the info being tossed around in regard to improvements and so on to avoid melting key components, I am assuming like MGL modules and Aeroconversion trigger modules and engine mounts etc, due to the massive heat soak after shutdown, Sonex are again looking at further improvements in design. With some luck I may be flying after christmas.

So that's that and where I'm at. My plane has been pushed into the corner.

My poor old plane, the Aeropup, has been through the wars of late too. I had a random person contact me about the plane who seemed to be extremely interested. So as one person was keen I thought I'd advertise it while I had some interest. Long story short two lots of different people were keen to look at the plane but as I had it at home where it can't be flown, they asked me to take it out the the airfield and carry out the 100 hourly and get it flying. Well I did all this including trailer hire, temporary hangarage, numerous costs for the annual and parts replacement due and of course avgas.

 So all flying well, took the missus for a fly, contacted the people to tell them it's ready to be viewed and guess what?.. Phones not being answered, txt messages not answered, emails not answered.  Very disappointed. I'm not disappointed about not selling the plane but just in the outright pricks for asking me to do all this work then not even giving me a return call. Anyway,,took the plane home and it can sit in my shed for another year or two as far as I'm concerned. If anyone now thinks they may be interested they can come to my house, view he plane, and if keen, hire a trailer and help me take it out to the field and then fly it. Won't likely happen but that's about all I can offer at the moment.

So okay I'm almost all done with the negative stuff but I do have to put just one more in. I'm certain I have definitely run over a black cat as on one of the last flights I had with the Sonex before the service bulletin releases I has a major leak sprout from the turbo feed line.

Oil had gone everywhere. I was luckily only 5 mins away from the airport when I smelt a massive stink of engine oil suddenly while flying. I made a lowish powered glide approach from about 6 miles out and watched the oil pressure gauge in case it dropped to nothing and landed all ok, taxied back and found thi(see pic).. Consequently I made a a new pipe that afternoon with the guys help from the club and had it running again. There was lots of discussion about how the pipe was unsuitable and so on, due to it being in a vibration high zone and things. Anyway the service bulletin now replaces that exact hose with flexible line so problem solved.

I did however have a bit of a win with some tyres. I was stuck on the ground for ages trying to sort out a tube for the wheels. I have since found out the tyre size is common in the US apparently yet not over here it seems. To cut a long story short I walked into my local tyre shop asking for tubes and he has some tyres there. They turned out to be the exact ones I needed for spares and a replacement. He wanted $50 a tyre. SOLD I said,,, The supplier I had talked to earlier that day could supply them each for $150 plus postage, WINNING,,, anyway another kind builder from over east sent me a second hand tube to get me flying again while I waited for the tubes to arrive for spares. Life was good again. He also sent me this jack for a very modest price. Lightweight and works great. Best thing I've seen for jacking up a plane that can store away for trips and is super light and easy to use. For anyone with a Sonex, I can't help but say this Jack is great.

Down and out once again due to instruments

Seems instrument troubles are once again the order of business for me.  After the last flight I had, and being as happy as a proverbial pig in, you know what, my next attempt at flight turned to just that.  At 9.3 x hours I hopped in the plane, after a pre flight, and started up. I noticed the engine instruments all crossed out on the EFIS. It took a while and then they came to life. I was a bit worried so taxied to the main apron where they crossed out again. Hmm. Back to the hangar. I had just flown it for 3 hours or so that day and this was to be the final flight to take it up to the 10 hour mark for servicing. Anyway I looked over everything and all seemed fine. I had no idea what was going on. I jumped in the plane again and started up and all was working again. "What the Heck". So I carried out a short flight and brought the hours up to 9.7 total so close enough for the 10 x hour service.
 A little bit worried the next day about the going on's of the EFIS again I carried out the service on the engine and so on and powered up the Instruments. This time nothing was happening in regard to the engine instruments at all.  I carried out a very comprehensive check of the wiring with no faults found. I had noticed the steady flash of the green LED on the RDAC and was thinking that was a good sign as in the manual it says that's what they do. Well actually that's what they do when they aren't transmitting data it seems. When they do transmit, they have a nice data type random blinking pattern like you would see on a modem communicating. Had I known about this b4 it would have saved me a week of stuffing round.
So after a week of no results I rang the MGL dealer who was quite certain that the RDAC had  probably failed in some way and he would post me a replacement. I was VERY appreciative as I had lost a week's flying already and I should be flying again by next weekend. So I got to Friday and no module in the mail. Great... 2 x  weeks flying down the tube now. I rang again Tuesday thinking maybe it will arrive on Monday and I'm just being impatient. Nope, get hold of the Dealer, "oh sorry, I forgot to send it."  Typical, just my luck.
 Being the 3rd week now of no flying a shiney new RDAC arrives in an express post bag on the  Friday morning. "WOOHOO, flying this weekend".   Open the box, Wrong RDAC, Doesn't have a MAP sensor.  Let the swear words begin.  So on Sunday arvo I had calmed down enough and rang the Dealer again. He apologised and said he would send the correct part on Monday. Well hopefully he will and has, so I am patiently awaiting its arrival.

My last flight now was on the 11th of June, exactly one month ago as I write this. Massively disappointed in my choice of instruments and I don't know if I have just had a bad run or not but, in less than 10 x hours, I've needed a new EFIS and RDAC.  I am now really worried about the long term prospect of a reliable single glass panel dash. I should have added round dials and saved myself thousands and been flying still. I have been constantly trying to work out if I have done something wrong with the install or caused this issue somehow. I bought all the pre wired harnesses and followed every instruction to the letter, so that thought process has not really been helping. I have had very experienced people helping me out in the process and they all can't see an issue apparent in the install. So it looks to be a bad luck case for me once again. If I could do it over again I would have bought the whole instrument package with the airframe from SONEX .  In the US, there is a three year warranty on the instruments, here in OZ we only get one year.  Warranty time is quickly running out for me and I haven't even flown for ten hours yet!

Anyway I'm hoping the last of the problems are now behind me.

A New Dawn

Ok, so after today I have to admit I'm getting a fair bit excited about this plane. I am now trying to put all the negative behind me and focus on the future and I have to admit it looks good. I flew today  for 2.1 hours and started to do some general testing with speeds and fuel flow.  I started out flying over the airfield for 40 mins then, after it performed flawlessly, I ventured out of the proximity of the airfield and set sail.

Some very basic figures so far, that's if I can rely on the accuracy of the fuel flow metre, but here they are:
- 100kts @ 12.5 Lp/h
- 110kts @  15 Lp/h
- 130kts @  22 Lp/h
These figures were at about 4000 to 5000ft for reference.

I have noticed that on take off it is very easy to boost the heck out of this motor. I was a little bit tardy noticing today on take off when I saw 44" hg in the climb . It wasn't for long and I had only just gotten  airborne so backed off to about 36" and continued the climb out. It was a short runway and gusty so settled for 36" and climbed out at about 800 fpm. Temps have been fantastic since the addition of the Rotec tbi and the enlarged cooling outlet. Max temp on climb today I saw was about 380f on the hottest cylinder. Happy days for sure.

According to whatever you read the Aerovee is supposed to be broken in hard. Treat it mean keep it keen I believe. Well today that just wasn't going to happen. The turbulence was a huge limiting factor and mostly I was really only flying at around 2600rpm @ 24" map.  It was averaging about 110kts and that was about the top speed I was comfortable with. I'd like to think it will still be run in ok and upon landing the compressions felt really good turning the prop over so we will see.

I tried in vain to set the compass module for the discovery lite. It seems I got to 99.3% done but landed so will have to do it again I guess, I'm not sure why it wouldn't finalise but will read the instructions again and try next flight.

I have also today set the dial a trim correctly. I'm not sure why I didn't read the manual correctly but in doing so today I found it works perfectly and now flys very close to hands off. I also cut the trim tab down by half on the aileron but need again to trim some more off. It should be perfect after the next adjustment. In regard to the elevator trim I think I just erred on the side of caution in regard to the initial setting. I didn't want to find myself with a huge amount of up trim on the first flight so was a tad too cautious. After the adjustment today though all is good.

So for future flights now that the temps and engine seems under control I best start documenting the SAAA cards for the phase 2 registration. I have about 36 hours to go so need to get cracking. There seems to be a large number of them so time to start. They basically help you determine best glide speeds and climb stats so should be fun and also something to do to help pass the time for the test hours.

Some pics of today's flight

Ok who has a smile from ear to ear?

Well as it turns out ME !!!!!!!

I flew the plane today for a nice 0.7 flight and a now 2.1 hours in total. With a nice Carb fitted and good mixtures it climbed out with temps all in the green. The CHT's never exceeded 400f and it climbed out great. I took it up to about 5000 ft and circled the airfield before a quick fly over the house to wave to the wife and daughter as a sort of victory lap. I have to tell you I was very happy upon landing as the whole flight was perfect. Dodging a few low clouds here and there saw me level out and start to see some good numbers on the panel.

The 3rd pic is a bit hard to see but straight and level at about 29-30 " I was TAS about 129 kts. Sweeeeeet.   The first two screens I was on a gradual climb out of about 200-300 fpm.

I'm so far really happy about the performance. Hopefully after 20-30 hours the engine will cool down some more like they usually do. I have a good positive feeling about it all now and looking forward to seeing these 40 test hours behind me.

I added an aileron trim tab that seems to be a bit large now. At the faster cruise I was at today, now temps are under control, the wing wants to go the other way funnily. I will reduce the size of the tab next time I'm out at the field and that should sort that out. I believe I will also need to add some more spring tension to the elevator "dial a trim". I just can't seem to get enough up trim for any flight operation so far. I have been flying with full up trim for the whole flight so need to get onto that asap. It will be nice when it flies hands-free after being all set up properly. Now the engine is running like it should I can start to concentrate on those sorts of things.

So I only flew the 0.7 today but I think I will just do the first oil change after the engine rebuild now. This will see me able to fly off the next 5 hours before it's due again as part of the break in procedure.

 Happy days.