2/18/2008
Today I completed phase 1. I have exactly 40.0 hours on N188LC.
The last few hours were spent flying with 210 lbs of sand bags strapped to the passenger seat. I did some slow flight, stalls, Vx and Vy tests and a lot of landings and touch and goes. The reason for so many landings is my first few were awful. An RV8 close to gross and close to aft CG flies very differently than solo. It is a lot more sensitive to pitch and control forces, especially at landing speeds are really light. On my first few landings in this configuration I ballooned and bounced several times. I went around twice. On take off a lot more forward stick is required. More than a Super Decathlon with two people on board. I was able to get used to it and my landings are better now.
I moved one of the 50# bags to the aft cargo area and flew again. This put me close to gross and close to aft CG. Again, I did more slow flight, stalls and landings. The purpose of this exercise was more as a confidence builder for me than test the plane.
Over the last 10 hours or so I have done many rolls, a few split-s's, Immelmans, one loop and one spin to the left and one to the right. I started this process by first doing steep turns. I started with 2G 60% bank turns and worked my way up to 3.5 Gs. This took several flights since I wanted to inspect the plane in .5G increments. I am not acclimated to Gs or aerobatics so I had to stop at 3.5Gs.
For the first few rolls I started at 135 knots, pitched up 30 degrees and rolled. I did many of these to try to acclimate myself. At first I felt slightly nauseous after about 2 rolls. I took a basic aerobatics course almost 2 years ago. I never overcame the nauseousness but I felt it better to try to get used to it in my RV8 than at $200/hour in a rented Super Decathlon with instructor.
In preparation or the first split-s, I did several things. I pitched the plane up to about 80 degrees and let it stall. When it pitched almost straight down I let the airspeed build up and recovered. It seemed safer to experience straight down and the subsequent pullout this way.
I then did aileron rolls at slower speeds. I worked it down to 85 knots startng them from level flight. This resulted in a pronounced pitch down at the completion but since I was practicing recovery, this worked out perfectly. Then I did a split-s. I slowed to 95 knots and rolled inverted. I pulled back on the the stick and throttled back . By the time I was vertical I was pulling on the stick doing about 3Gs. Airspeed when it leveled out was about 150 knots. I did this many times until my stomach made me quit.
For the first loop, my strategy was to fly at 145 knots and do a 3G pull-up. If airspeed seemed more than 95 knots at the top, I would roll into an Immelman instead. I started at 7000 feet (all of this early acro was at 7000-8000). I started at 145 knots and gave it full power and pulled hard on the stick until it felt like 3 Gs. I have a G meter but I didn't look. As it went beyond vertical the stick forces lightened up considerably over the top they were very light but no stall horn or negative Gs. I kept coming around until speed built up and I was doing about 3 Gs again. I leveled out at 145 knots.
I have repeated this several times since then. I have heard the stall horn a couple of times pulling a little to hard over the top. I have done a few Immelmans. The last time I went up I felt absolutely zero nausea. I can do all of the maneuvers I am interested in doing with less than 3.5 Gs on the airframe. I am also getting used to Gs and (this is weird) I think I am becoming addicted to them. It's becoming fun to dogfight against myself (and try to catch my own tail?).
I don't plan to take aerobatics in my RV8 any further than positive G recreational stuff when I am finished with phase 1.
In the last couple of months I have installed landing gear intersection fairings (from Fairings, Etc.), a Garmin 496 in my Air Gizmos gizmo, a canopy lock and upholstered the rear cushions. I have slowly pinched the trailing edge of the right aileron to fix a heavy wing (it now flies hands off with trim in the middle at all airspeeds). I had headphone jack problems due to me having mount the headphone and mike receptacles too close together. I had a high oil temp false alarm due to the engine not being well grounded to the airframe. I can't think of any other problems.
I never thought I would get to this point. Now I can take my wife for a flight, go just about anywhere I want and fly at night. I can't wait. I can legally fly IFR once I get current again but I don't plan to do so until I get an autopilot and redundancy for the EFIS.