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Pre Taxi Test Engine Issues Part2

Date:  10-11-2024
Number of Hours:  15
Manual Reference:  23

Following on from Part 1 of this story, things got worse. I hope there isn’t a Part 3. We first waited for the new flywheel to arrive.

My lock wiring has never been very good. It’s become local sport for the guys to see what I’ve done and then point out the faults, and even give a hint on how I can improve. At least they have stopped cutting them off. This is still not ‘LAME standard’ but it is better than it was.  Of course I get to cut them off given the prop and prop extension have to be removed yet again.

Here’s the new flywheel. It is a bit heavier than the old one,1.9kg vs 3.2kg. I was trying to save weight in case I had a balance issue and needed ballast in the nose but the scales and calculations tell me all is well back there. A bit more mass in the flywheel is a good thing. Although any extra weight is not of course as it takes more horsepower to move it.

I moved this ignition trigger one stop to line up better with the magnets on the new flywheel.

The magnet to trigger gap is within spec now of about 1/16″. It was wider with the old flywheel and the magnets were not as well centred. We felt this might be the rough running problem and given I needed a new set of teeth it just seemed prudent to ditch the old one for this.

The expense with it being an airplane part and modified with three magnets was eye watering. It was held up in Wildlife and Fisheries customs for nearly a week after getting here. I remain confused about the likely pathogens that live on metal that might be a danger to entry into Australia. I have to pay a fee for it to sit there. No one told me I needed to pay yet more money on top of the freight, duty and GST. So it sat some more until I started spending a couple of hours a day on the phone trying to sort it out.  Legal theft? We don’t have much tipping or widespread bribes here, call this what you will.

With the prop back on we first wanted to check everything. We got a pin out drawing for the ignition looms and buzzed the wires to ensure they were correct. We rechecked the ignition CDI blocks to ensure they were not the wrong way around. We rechecked the spark plug leads to ensure we hadn’t gotten that wrong. We have done all this before but something has been wrong and we wanted to eliminate every possibility of a fault we could think of.

We even rechecked the new flywheel position relative to Top Dead Centre (TDC) and the number of degrees before this that the trigger magnets should pass the pickup. This shows on the cockpit engine display as T1,T2 S1 S2. We had the positions from EFII support. This all checked out as correct. We were at least confident that it ‘should’ start ok although I admit to being weary now of my well worn optimism which is has been taking a hit with this engine installation.

Here’s the first start attempt. I couldn’t get it going. However the cranking speed was good so we can confirm that problem is solved.

For the next try I gave it two pumps of the throttle which engages the accelerator pump. I’d just done one pump on the last start attempt. Protocol is to then wait ten seconds and then go for another start.

This is what happened. Probably the loudest backfire I have ever heard close up and a dead stop.

If you can read palms, tell me what this means please.

Here’s the result. The gear was stuck out on the brand new starter and six teeth were missing from the previously unused flywheel. Houston, we have a problem…still.

In fact an even bigger problem than I thought. Not only flywheel teeth gone but that event took out the new starter motor as well. Dead as a doornail. You can see above two teeth are out of that internal starter cog. It has a shear pin to prevent this problem, for whatever reason that pin is intact and the starter isn’t.

I am extremely fortunate, at least with some things, that the hangar guys took care of the starter and had a new ring in stock. The old one gets ground through almost to the edge and then a hit with a cold chisel gets it off. The new ring is heated up as you see above and just slips over the flywheel. You can have the flywheel in the fridge first if you like. I hadn’t seen this before although it is a standard practice.

Of course I wasn’t going to get off that ‘lightly’.

One of the prop bolts galled when trying to get it out. That thing was really stuck in there.  It eventually was teased out with a lot of forceful technique. Someone bigger than me did the hard work here.

Of course the insert was also toast. I now have the repaired flywheel and starter reinstalled although not torqued up. I didn’t have any spare prop bolts, let alone an inset so these have been ordered and will come from the USA in a week or more, customs permitting.

I was previously meticulous in cleaning the threads and using a little light oil. That didn’t save me. I am getting a 1/2″ UNF tap and die and from now on all bolts and threads will get the run through. I am going to use anti-seize although people say not to. My plane, my call. With 50’lbs of torque and lockwire I consider this as safe as I can get it. I’m not going to have galling again if I can help it.

The fun is not over yet. I bought a borescope as I wanted to check inside the cylinders and for other hard to see places.

Rust…

More rust.

These are cylinder walls covered in rust. This engine was not preserved. It should have been per Lycoming instructions before shipping. The lack of smoke on the very first start should have been a clue. Apparently if preserved per specs, fluid should drip out when you remove spark plugs . This didn’t happen. The engine was delivered with desiccant spark plugs which is to remove moisture. I assumed things were correct.

To be fair I could speculate as that because you are meant to ship things without fluids this was why it was empty. However, I would need a heads up if things were subject to rust with zero protection. I assumed it would have been sprayed or coated internally somehow. The evidence show this engine has been sitting around for a long time indeed. If this was a standard engine, I’d get the cylinders off relatively easily, however we have quite a different beast here and I’m going to push ahead and see what some running does. I am extremely concerned that we might have rusting deeper in the engine. This would likely cost me a bomb and maybe a year.

Meanwhile, I have these parts back on while I wait for prop bolts and the new insert.  We can get a strobe timing light on this and check that both ignitions are firing where they should just by cranking the engine over with some plugs out. This might be a job for next week. It is back to the waiting for parts game AND we still need to find out what’s wrong with the timing of this engine ignition.

We have to find something before I will risk another start.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre Taxi Test Engine Issues Part1

Date:  09-21-2024
Number of Hours:  20
Manual Reference:  23

July 21 2024 This was our first attempt at starting the plane. An exciting moment. Simon, my super capable avionics/electronics guy was on hand. He is also a pilot and aircraft owner which adds to the pool of knowledge. Darren my long time friend who had helped with some of the big layups on the plane was operating a phone camera to record our success.  It turns out physics when applied to aeroplane engines doesn’t care about optimism.

As you can see, an epic fail. For a start, the cranking is really slow. The energy from the batteries is losing current by the time it gets to the starter. We tries both batteries separately and then together (in parallel) which is available on the panel. No luck. I have 4AWG size cables and the voltage loss is too much for this very large tight engine. We thought at the time this was the only problem.

We got the battery cart out and applied power directly to the starter motor bypassing the plane’s batteries and start button. It was really the old school “Contact” with the jumper cables to get the start. You can see even with all that power to the engine starter it was struggling. I had a bit of work to keep it running too and what’s with the backfires?  It seemed to run OK and idled very well down low but it wasn’t sounding smooth. We put all this down to the preserving oil getting cleaned out on the first run.

We were wrong.

We thought the issue must be the cable size. I ordered 2AWG CCA cable to replace the 4AWG throughout the plane.  This was no small task and it took a couple of weeks to get cable from the USA. This is a lighter weight copper clad aluminium that has less voltage drop that pure copper and less weight. It is slightly fatter however which added to the installation challenges.

I did mention this job in a previous post but here we are again for context.

My batteries were not in perfect condition and one was charging poorly. I bought two new HC20 which have more CCA (cranking amps) and supposedly the same foot print as the PC680’s. No they don’t. An hour or two carefully rounding the corners of the batteries had them fitting in my holders.

21 September 2024 With new cables and new batteries, without the spark plug leads, we cranked it over in the hangar. It did crank faster and we thought OK, job done. This is not going to break prop speed records but we felt it should start the engine. Job done.   …….but it wasn’t.

We had also addressed another huge issue. Clearly from the first start we could tell the timing was wrong. How could this be? The engine had been run for 25.2hours before delivery. Well a few of us had noticed that there was zero wear of the flywheel AND the starter motor. The engine builders must have used their own for whatever reason and bolted these on before delivery.

The ignition is triggered from three magnets imbedded in the purple pulley ring you see above, This is in turn bolted to the flywheel. Quite a few emails went back and forth to Robert Paisley at EFII. Robert is fantastic at support and one of the many reasons I went with his EFII System 32 ignition and fuel injection.

Eventually we got the numbers of degrees past TDC which we could measure. At a certain point when the ignition is triggered it shows on the engine monitor. Well to our, lets say, ‘surprise’, this was nowhere near correct. The magnets were in the wrong position!  No wonder we had a problem starting. The flywheel came off and we got the ring orientated correctly, there are a few ways you can bolt it on and it was 180 degrees wrong. This took a bit of head scratching as the email instructions seemed a bit cryptic, it is a hard thing to explain in words.

So we had found the problem and were confident that the next start attempt would go well.  <sigh> Read on if you want to.

We tried to start but still had a problem. The cranking wasn’t all that fast, even on both batteries, and it just would not run. There was also a loud clicking noise. During our attempts it looks like the starter on one of the backfires kicked out a tooth on the flywheel!

So we still have a timing issue and I need a new ring gear, but there was something worse yet to come.

Yes the engine groans, perhaps ironically. I’d been aware of this really tight spot where this sound is since I got what sometimes feels like a $100,000 brick. Given my plans, I really thought I needed to ask the engine designer about it. A few people has said its just a tight engine and this is not uncommon. That is until they heard the noise. Well I was told I needed to find out what it is and that I should do a bulk strip of the engine. In Australia you are looking at $30,000 to $40,000 and maybe six months. GA has declined here with engine shops being in small numbers now and long waiting lists.  I was not happy.

I was lucky to have ‘The Engine Whisperer’ working in the hangar. He spent some time on it as a person who has many years with these things. He could tell by feel that it wasn’t rings but either thrust washers or main bearings. Apparently you can tell by the amount of play relative to the sound when you move the prop. It was still a bulk strip.

He then measured the endplay which came in at .0015″. Lycoming says .002″ to .006″. Given the tight tolerances of this design and a pretty rough measuring dial gauge setup we can call this good. Zero play would have been a big problem.

After some reflection and the next day there were another series of prop wiggling and listening for a new diagnosis. The sound wasn’t loudly present that day although the tightness was still there. An ear to the rocker covers found the problem.  It is the rockers moving in the new bronze bushings that have not bedded in that is causing the squeaking and the tightness at that spot. Apparently this is common on newly overhauled engines on their twins which have a similar size powerplant to mine.

As this was a familiar problem, with the source of the sound isolated, I’m calling this one solved and I can sleep better at night again. For once, the engine will self heal. Meanwhile we still have the no start issue.

 

You might need a few plays. We get down to 4.49 volts and 499.7amps!!! OK, momentarily but this engine is NOT happy. The tight spot is probably where the peaks are.  What is going on?

After lots of discussion about what to do next we thought we would try a bit of a scattergun approach. That is when you just start replacing things after no clear idea of what the problem is.

The Chief Engineer in the hangar had gabbed a starter motor from the store and offered it as something to try. A very generous thing to do.

Here’s the old starter, which has had less than 60 seconds of use in total. Clearly never used in the previous engine running before delivery. Its a B&C and I don’t think its faulty. It is string enough to break a flywheel tooth after all!

Here’s the new SkyTec starter. Just under a pound lighter and very surprisingly despite the longer footprint, there is room to fit it.

Simon did the bulk of the work to get this thing installed. We had to play with the main cables a bit and find a new link to the alternator but we got it done.

Here we go with the SkyTec. I don’t have video of the meters but peak current was nearer 200amps and voltage drop not lower than 6volts. You can see the prop isn’t going to break the sound barrier at the tips with its rotation speed BUT it is hugely improved on the old starter. I think this one should work.

The SkyTec has a permanent magnet rather than an energised field, I wonder if that’s the difference? So I have rotation speed with my own airplane batteries and the cranking might be sorted out. I think the current drop was causing the B&C to retract just momentarily and throw out the starter gear and that’s what broke the tooth.

Lets go back to this picture. Given we still have the timing issue I sent this shot off the EFII. We think we have the timing ring in the right spot so what’s up?

I’m told that the magnets don’t line up with the pickup dead centre. OK I tried to move the pickup but it has no sliding adjustment. The magnets were also placed a little off-centre in the purple ring which adds to the problem. It further turns out that the magnet to pickup gap should be 1/16″, my gap was 1/8″! I can fix that but not the other problem.

I need a new flywheel gear given the broken tooth. I have a Skydynamics lightweight flywheel with a custom fitted pulley ring. Given a few factors, the magnets are slightly off centre, this flywheel gap is a problem, my weight and balance issues with extra weight at the back turned out to be unfounded, I can take a regular weight flywheel.

A new Superior flywheel with installed magnets which are standard from EFII is in the mail. Will this be the answer to solve the timing issue? You will have to all wait, as I am, for my next blog post to find out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fuel Calibration 2 Labels

Date:  09-17-2024
Number of Hours:  14
Manual Reference:  no ref

These fuel level labels were tough to make. I put 14 hours down for the time, it was probably twice that.

This is what I set up when pouring fuel into the wings in 5 litre increments. The markings are every 10 litres.

Converting the marks on the tape to something I could print out in Word on my home printer took forever. It was very much trial and error. Print where the marks go and comparing this to the marks on my tape. You have to go from the top down and I was increasing or reducing the size of the spaces one point at a time. Then I’d print and check my work. There were eight labels to do!

This is printed out on yellow cardboard. I played with the angles on the rear one as a sort of triangle mount like Toblerone chocolate.

The front labels on this angle took a bit of head scratching to make something printable. Angling the text didn’t seem easy at all but a graduated number set to a line worked well.

I’m skipping a few steps here. I found some CriCut inkjet clear printable labels that you then apply a plastic coating to.  The material I’m mounting on is G10, a compressed fiberglass that is quite strong. I had some very thin stuff left over from an earlier part of the build. I’m using this as just gluing a label onto the fuselage side would end in tears. The surface is too rough with the textured paint. Better to mount on a solid smooth background and silicone that to the sides. This also makes them easily removable.

Next up I painted the back of the G10 yellow to highlight the numbers even more. I used grey paint for the front or ‘nose down’ labels.

The pic is two sides of the triangle. I’ve taped them together and then run superglue down the seam. Next I used some powder that soaks into the glue and makes a really strong join.

This is pour foam to fill the triangles. I want a backing surface for mounting.

Here’s the finished result ready for mounting.

The angle is so I can see it from the front seat. The grey label in the front is when the nose is down. You might look at this during refuelling. Its not something relevant in flight where the nose is slightly above level. Probably around 2 degrees. I’ve done my calibrations at 0 degrees. Flight tests will determine if this is an important difference. If it is, I can move the back or inflight label scales

The front seat was challenging but here we are. Readable fuel levels. Overall I am not happy with my work. I will get it done more professionally some time later using stuff called Traffolyte. For now it is a massive upgrade from a bit of tape!

 

 

Back Seat Cushion

Date:  09-02-2024
Number of Hours:  10
Manual Reference:  24

The back seat has been a concern. I should have made the turtleback at least 2 inches higher at the firewall. I did not allow for the common sump to raise the passengers head so far. I could argue that 2 inches higher would have created more drag. Lets go with that.

I had an idea that if the passenger (PAX) was more laid down like a glider seat it might work better. Of course if you have long legs then its still a problem. At least I could offer two options for a PAX.

After many trials and testing of a few people I had a design worked out that was comfortable, as long as you don’t have long legs. I bought a slab of foam for $30 and using an electric bread knife then various grades of sandpaper I had a shape.

After a lot more tweaking I used contact glue to do the first join.

To get the cushions to sit relaxed like this needed a second gluing. First I made a series of 30 or 40 shallow cuts so that the foam would be happy to hold this shape without trying to spring apart.

As you can see it sits pretty well in the back area and I can assure you it is comfortable if you are under about 5’10”. The next step is getting the upholstery done which, to be fair, will be a little tricky.

As you can see this is sorted out. I now have two seat cushion options to offer passengers.

 

Elevator Tweak

Date:  08-26-2024
Number of Hours:  10
Manual Reference:  11

My elevators just seem too stiff at the stick. It’s has been bothering me for a couple of years. I had a former senior Boeing aeronautical engineer look at it and he said it was safe and being so stiff might reduce the onset of flutter.

While I of course accept this, I’m still the ‘manufacturer’ and it just wasn’t something that felt right and correct. Now I’m about to test fly I wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.

With the usual difficulty I got the canard off. The autopilot servo makes this hard. After several goes I did get a more acceptable method worked out. I had to find the source of the friction. These witness marks of the offset were my first clue.

Here it looks like the marks are mainly on the underside.

It is quite a job getting the elevators out. Two very long stainless steel pins hold them in via three ‘hangers’ per side. I needed to check all the connections to see if there was any galling or if the bushings the pins were going through were too tight.

I checked all the hinges and they were fine. I greased everything while it was out. Getting the pins back in is a job that has driven grown men to tears. It only took me an hour or so this time which is pretty good.

As you can see in the video the elevators are nice and free now. Frankly not all that different to before once it was out of the plane. OK, slightly better. Obviously now, and confirmed with my experimental data, the main problem is when I put the canard back on.

It turned out that there was a little bit of paint at the offset hinge where those witness marks were. That thickness of paint top and bottom, once the canard was back in place and bolted on, created enough friction to be the big issue. I think it was the squeezing that made a clamping pressure.

When the elevators were off I very VERY carefully removed paint under the offset and on the fuselage side as well. I ensured I was down to the bare phenolic which is what I made the ‘seats’ or touch points of the elevator shafts. Any gap here causes a huge chill factor in the cockpit so it needs to be a very close tolerance fit, but not too close as it clearly was after painting.

Here is the elevator reinstalled AND connected back to the stick. As you can now see it is free, it looks and feels right now. I will be happy to fly without concern.

I also revised the springs in the elevator linear actuator which is how the trim is set. I had heavier ones that I tried when the elevator was stiff. Then I changed to lighter to see if that was the problem. Nope. Now I’ve gone back to heavier springs. I can overpower these easily which is important in the event of a trim failure. Maybe they are still too light? I won’t know until I test fly. I should at least get an idea if I can do a fast taxi up to 60 knots or so to see how it feels as the canard flies.

I’ve just done the work on the annual for JZE. I need to be current in this before I begin the test flight program on XEZ. When I say I’ve done this, my work must be supervised by a LAME (licenced) and I can’t sign it out. If I was keeping the plane I could be authorised as I have built one of the same type but it will be going to a new home soon enough.

Interesting to see them side by side for perhaps the last time.

While I had the opportunity, I check the profile of both canards. Here’s the new build, pretty much as it should be.

Here’s JZE, slightly different at the LE. The canard flies at 65 knots on this plane. I wonder if XEZ will fly closer to the 60 knots mark which is more usual for the Roncz canard? Then again in might be the lower AofA that JZE has being slightly nose down with the gear fully down.  XEZ is set slightly nose up on the ground so this should make a difference on take off.

Painting the Cowls

Date:  08-29-2024
Number of Hours:  52
Manual Reference:  25

Oh how I hate sanding. The stick of pain was never my friend. Yes that’s a long sanding stick with sandpaper glued or taped to it. Not whatever you were thinking! I put off prepping and painting the cowls until now in case I had to modify them.

I have spent a ton of time tweaking the fit and putting this job off. Now it must be done or I’m pretty sure I’ll be running around in bare carbon and UV will damage that. I may still have to modify these cowls if it doesn’t cool by making the scoops wider. I wish I’d done this earlier but I didn’t want to risk doing it twice. I’ve run out of time to test and then paint. So here we go if I have to repaint… so be it.

First up was a pretty gross fill around those modifications to the bottom of the cowls I did a while back to better fit the radiators. The scoop joins also needed a fill. I probably should have placed those scoops further forward. I definitely needed to join them at the fuselage so they could be permanent to the radiators. That’s a huge job if I ever go ahead with it.

My oil and coolant door needed a final fit. This was quite a few cure cycles for what ended up a very small amount of filler.

Lots and lots of hand sanding just to get a start on the cowl insides.

More initial sanding before the first fill.

This is the high build primer I’m using.

This is the top coat what was used for the rest of the plane. Apparently it has a long flash time unlike most automotive two packs. Harder to spray but a better result in the hands of an expert.

Given most of this primer is going to be sanded off I have gone for the roller. Not nearly as messy as spraying.

You’d think this is it and I’m done? Nope a good two more weeks of filling, sanding and filling to go.

Here’s a fill before the sanding. The idea is to get every pin hole and little deformity smooth.

After a bunch of hand sanding I’m through to the carbon in a lot of places as expected.

Someone smarter than me would have painted the spinner months ago. I need the prop off for this and it is now delaying taxi testing which I could start with cowls off. Prop off and on again is not a great idea. There is always a risk of galling the threads of the prop extension so best to do this as little as possible.

More filling.

More sanding.

More sanding. OK, the insides do not need to be very good. We are just going to spray these with a cheaper two pack white and keep the good stuff for then outsides. I’m going for insides white mainly so I can easily spot oil and coolant leaks. If its painted I have a better shot of keeping it clean too. Raw carbon just soaks up oil and grime.

Here’s the spinner and ‘lampshade’ combo. When I get a new prop these will probably be redundant but they will be in use for a while yet.

I would have spent 3 or 4 days at least just on these intersections that nobody will see. It is super hard to fill and sand in there. I had to make them better than they were but it is less fun than other things in life.

Here’s the bottom pretty much done, or so I thought. All the parts have now gone off to a painter for final prep and paint. She has only just started doing some spray work on the side to her normal job which is unrelated. In fact she has just done her own car and frankly the job was amazing. Some people have very high standards and the skills and talent to match.

It seems my work was not acceptable and she has re-sanded and re-primed to a much higher level. My two weeks of work is not waisted although I probably could or should have done better. The top cowl and spinner need to look good, the bottom and insides are much less important. I’m confident of a job to match the rest of the plane or better.  Certainly better spray painting than I could ever do.

Here they are. a couple of weeks later.  She put in 23 hours mainly fixing up my prep work to HER standards. Then better spray painting than the rest of the plane despite this top coat being done by a guy who paints jets for a living! This was her second project.

It took me a good days work to get the door fitting. I hadn’t left enough of a gap for the thickness of paint. Lesson learnt.

I asked that all the attention should go on the top cowl as you hardly see the bottom. Its still really good.

Looks at the sharpness of the shine, this is unpolished and straight off the gun. No I am not telling you who this person, on her second painting job with a spray gun is. If I ever want anything else done, I don’t think she should be busy with your jobs 😉

Certificate of Airworthiness, CofA, granted.

Date:  08-15-2024
Number of Hours:  1
Manual Reference:  25

This aircraft began its journey December 1st 2011. On this day 15th of August, 2024 it officially became an aeroplane.

This is the Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA) It goes in the logbook and a copy get carried in the airplane at all times. The paperwork says 17 of August, That’s to cover paying the bill on time, which I did very gratefully on the 15th anyway.

Condition 14 is a wonderful and unexpected gift. I had expected to have to pull the wings off and transport the plane to the test area airfield nearly 2 hours away by truck. I have been given permission to fly from Moorabbin after a brief test period to continue the main program at what will be my new Leongatha (YLED) base.

I have also been given a 25 hour minimum testing period. It may take longer but I will not be bound by the 40 hour period often given.

This has been 12 years 8 months and change to get from project to airplane. Of course I still have a few things to do before taxi tests and first flight. I hope to be airborne in VH-XEZ late next month.

Fuel Calibration1 How much does it hold?

Date:  08-09-2024
Number of Hours:  18
Manual Reference:  21

The strakes on this plane have been modified to take more fuel, a lot more. The downside is that I had to give up very valuable baggage space.  I still want both. I could have left a little bit, a pocket or two for lunch but that’s now way too late.

Many years ago now, I planned how much fuel I could fit in without making the cockpit baggage cutouts. I did this old school with graph paper and dots to count the squares! My ‘skills’ said I could fit 300 litres rather than the plans 200 litres. Then there is the common sump which I was thinking might be about 15 litres or so. Now was the time to find out if I had 315lts!

First up was getting that much fuel in bags or cans so I could slowly transfer it to the tanks. Not only do I need to know the maximum I can hold but I wanted to calibrate my forward and aft sight gauges.

I needed two readings per quantity. Nose up near flying angle would give me flight fuel and nose down would give me a guide when refilling on the ground with the nose down.  Flying attitude might be nearer 2 degrees, but that’s not going to happen on the ground!

I soon found that even .4 degrees nose up had the plane tipping backwards onto my ‘safety catch stand’ once there was a bit of fuel onboard.

I get a good reference line of the longeron position in the cockpit.

You can see the level on the longeron here, I went with zero degrees as the difference is slight for fuel quantity and the airplane will not tip backwards without encouragement.

So zero degrees. We are good to go with what become a very long day and night. I put 5 litres poured into a calibration watering can’ (one that had marks on it) into each tank. Even though they cross feed I didn’t want to wait as I don’t know how long it would take for the various levels. Then I’d put a mark on each sight gauge tape. Next I’d lower the nose and do the front, nose down marks.

Front right side. Yes its a lot of marks! You can see how the nose down position isn’t much use after 60 litres.

Left side front. The gauges are full here.

Right side back. I bet you are wondering how am I going to read the graduations by turning around from the pilot seat in flight.

Left side gauge. Yeah, I don’t know yet how I’m going to size nice readable printed labels either! This day went well into the night, but I did get it done.

With the tanks absolutely full. I got 310 litres. Within 5 litres of my estimate years ago. Very smart or very lucky? I’ll leave that to you.

The next huge task was the calibrate my AG6 fuel gauges. First of all they didn’t work at all so. I had not plugged a lead in correctly, then the readings didn’t work. My very skilled avionics guy figured it out.

The gauge graduations go off voltages that come from these liquid sensors. It was set up for 12 volts not aircraft 14volts. We added a pull down resistor and that sorted it out.

Here is the full indication.

So called 3/4 is only about 20litres or so less.

So on it goes. While I put the sensors roughly equal distances apart they don’t reflect equal amounts of fuel remaining.

I will have to revisit the programming of the button gauge and set the graduations more appropriately.

I do know if I see this empty gauge or the Low Sump warning that follows I’ll have about 14 litres of fuel left and I should already be on the ground.

I do need to recheck these marking indicators in flight. Overall, I’ll be going by the cockpit sight gauge graduations and the fuel burn on the Garmin G3X/GTN750 which once calibrated should be super accurate.

A little ‘bonus’ is that with the tanks full of course the vent lines are covered. I get a very slow leak through them onto the ground. I found that tipping the plane nose down a little stopped the leak. Then later it started up again and kept slowly dripping until the temperature of the hangar dropped a few degrees, then it stopped again.

If I fill up overnight I need to have a catch bucket and watch the temperatures in the morning, or just fill before I go. I’m thinking if I need to be that full its going to be a long flight and an early start!

 

 

Pre Taxi – Fixing a few Squarks

Date:  08-04-2024
Number of Hours:  12
Manual Reference:  23

Since the first engine start, there are a couple of things to address before I’m ready for slow taxi tests.

See those cutouts around the battery terminals? These are new. I was getting nervous with how close the metal straps were  to the terminals. It took a while and a repaint of the straps. I feel a LOT better that these are safer. I want to keep the smoke in the wires.

There is only electric trim on this plane. No mechanical. I set it all up with the canard on and to my surprise one end popped out. That would not be good. It just needs a couple of rivets or something. I thought it was screwed in, not so.

Here it, I am very fortunate to have had the cylinder made for me perfectly, even with my name engraved on it! I should have checked it against these plans.

I used a couple of screws. Pretty ugly I know, but it does the job and they are easily removed. I also change the springs to lighter ones. I have a selection. This is a suck it and see item. I hope to find out during a fast taxi if the stick forces are manageable for first flight.

The next problem that came from first engine start was a big one. We couldn’t get enough power out of the batteries to turn the engine over. We had to go direct from a battery cart to the starter motor. This was two issues. One of my batteries was not delivering, the other could be better but the REAL reason was #4AWG cable had too much voltage loss over the 30 feet of out and return.

The answer was to buy another 40′ of cable and replace what was in the plane. The #4 cable was not cutting it, we needed 2AWG. Where to get it? Here’s a link via an RV site.

It was a pretty big job. The above cable is only slightly bigger in diameter but still presented a few issues getting it installed. Of course all the ends had to be remade. As always, my avionics guy did a great job while I assisted in a very minor capacity. At the end of the day, we cranked the engine with the plugs disconnected. It was much better and I should be ok. Of course I need two new and better batteries as well to replace the PC380’s. There is the HC20 with more CCA, so thats what is coming. I also have a new battery charger. The old one may have caused issues.

Those two water pump brackets have just had a three ply BID layup over the top of them. I feel more secure now. Aluminium to glass is always an issue.

Fuel calibration is coming up. I have the 4 flexible bags and have borrowed 8 cans. I need 300liters, I think, just for the strakes. We will find out soon.

Another issue I am looking at now is to try again with the back seat. I have found with the cushions out it can fit passengers a lot better. It needs a completely redesigned seat cushion to make it usable. I’m on the case!

 

 

 

 

Weight & Balance – How we did it

Date:  07-26-2024
Number of Hours:  10
Manual Reference:  26

This is how I approached the weight and balance. I should say ‘we’ as a fellow airplane scratch builder was an enormous help having done it before, and he is better at these thing anyway.

There are two tasks for the W&B. One is to take measurements of the plane, the other to weigh it. Who said it all has to be done on the same day? It was easier to do the measure up first. There are plenty of articles and papers on how to do this.

Here my friend is dropping a plumb bob at the nose, one of various locations on the plane. We then marked them on the floor.

That yellow bit of tape is another one of the locations.

We used a chalk line between marked points which is standard practice for setting up these measurements.

This is a ‘DATUM’ I marked on the plane. The Long-EZ plans tell you how to do the measurements in the POH. The Datum used is kind of a location that would be challenging to measure from when adding new items to get the ‘arm’ or ‘station’. This permanent line is 47.55″ back from the nose and made it easy to set up the W&B extra items.

OK, not exactly my neatest work. These are the raw numbers we ended up with and are critical to getting thing right. Everything we needed was here. Except the weights, that was done nearly a month later.

This is set up on the scales. Someone had made some nice ramps to get the plane on and to prevent overrun at the front. The aircraft is leveled fore and aft at zero degrees and side to side as well. Everything is on the plane for ‘basic’ empty weight. This includes full oil of 8liters and full coolant of 6 liters.

Here is the BEW, it includes a right main side wheel chock of 1.38kg which we take off later in the calculations. You can see it is very close to the same weight on each main. I’m happy about that. My girl is ‘festively plump’ you might say at a tad over 500kg or about 1,100 pounds. I have set the maximum at 995kg, something I can do as the manufacturer. This is well over the plans weight and I have engineering justifications and documents to support my decision.

Frankly, these are just a few shots of the plane. I haven’t seen it with everything on and mostly painted.

The cowls will be painted white soon, a big job.

I may leave the spinner in the carbon black and just clear coat it.

Beautiful nose art, airbrushing by a very talented artist.

This is the ferry tank. I’m yet to decide how I will secure it.

OK, on to the paperwork and calculations. This is a plan I made up and printed before weighing. I wanted to know the exact correct stations for the key items. Things like the PODs effect of the balance needed to be found as well as the effect of luggage in the pods.

We set this up so that we progressively add items making the process easier on weighing day. We did two lots of numbers for BEW. We correctly unstrung the landing gear to remove side forces that distorted the result on the first numbers. The scales only do whole kilograms. This is fine. The process took us only about 2.5 hours to do, if you don’t count lunch.

WEIGHT & BALANCE Results and Workings
I’ve put this all in, just in case someone needs to see the workings. I found it a little hard to do. My skills here are pretty poor, I’m more a big picture guy. I had to think about it for a bit and correct a few errors. You, my friend, are probably a lot smarter.

  • Allowable CG range is 97″ to 103″ (all CG distance numbers in inches)
  • Weights in Kilograms
  • Numbers done 26/7/244 Darren & I @ YMMB RVAC hangar
  • Corrected for RHS wheel cock of 1.38kg (this number taken from collected Rt Main data)
  • Numbers to two decimal places only
  • We did multiple weighings so we could work out our own moments with some accuracy
ITEM Item WT TotalWT Nose LTMain   RTMain
BEW     8lt oil (full), 6lts Coolant, No fuel 501.62 12 245 244.62
BEW + Oxygen (then removed) 5 506.62 14 246 246.62
BEW + Pilot 73 574.62 56 260 258.62
BEW + Pilot and PAX 168 669.62 69 301 299.62
BEW + Empty Pods 9 510.62 11 250 249.62
BEW + Full Pods (40lbs/18.14kg each) 37 547.62 9 269 269.62
BEW + 60lts wing Fuel (44kg) 44 545.62 16 263 266.62
BEW + (incl 60L Wing fuel) Empty Ferry bladder , associated pumps and hoses 44+6 551.62 17 265 269.62
BEW + Ferry Tank + 40lts (32kg) Fuel 44+6+32 583.62 23 278 282.62

Calculate Center of Gravity (CG)           

BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 244.62 110.65 27,067.20
LH Main 245 110.65 27,109.25
Nose 12 18.65 223.80
Totals 501.62 54,400.25

BEW CG = 108.45″ Moment/Weight = 54,400.25/501.62

BEW + Oxygen (then removed) 5 506.62 14 246 246.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 246.62 110.65 27,288.50
LH Main 246 110.65 27,219.90
Nose 14 18.65 261.10
Totals 506.62 54,769.50

The change in moment from BEW to when we added the Oxygen  is 54,769.50 less 54,400.25 This is a moment of change 369.35.

Oxygen Arm= 73.85 Moment/weight = 369.25/5

BEW + Pilot 73 574.62 56 260 258.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 258.62 110.65 28,616.30
LH Main 260 110.65 28,769.00
Nose 56 18.65 1,044.40
Pilot 73 Unknown yet
Totals 574.62 58,429.70

CG = Moment/Weight = 58,429.70/574.62 = 101.68″

We need to know the ARM or “Station” for the pilot so we can use a weight other than 73kg
The change in moment from BEW to when we added the Pilot is 58,429.70 less 54,400.25. This is a moment of 4029.45.

if       WT x Pilot ARM = Moment   then
Pilot ARM = 55.2 Moment/weight = 4029.45/73 

BEW + Pilot and PAX (no fuel) 168 669.62 69 301 299.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 299.62 110.65 33,152.95
LH Main 301 110.65 33,305.65
Nose 69 18.65 1,286.85
Totals 669.62 67,745.45

The change in moment from BEW with the Pilot to when we added the PAX (94.9Kg) is 67,745.45 less 58,429.70. This is a moment change of 9,315.75.

PAX Arm = 98.06 Moment/weight = 9,315.75/95(weight of PAX) 

BEW + Empty Pods 9 510.62 11 250 249.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 249.62 110.65 27,620.45
LH Main 250 110.65 27,662.50
Nose 11 18.65 205.15
Totals 510.62 55,488.10

The change in moment from BEW to when we added the empty PODS is 55,488.10 less 54,400.25 This is a moment of change 1,087.85.

POD Arm = 120.87 Moment/weight = 1087.85/9 

BEW + Full Pods (40lbs/18.14kg each) 37 547.62 9 269 269.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 269.62 110.65 29,833.45
LH Main 269 110.65 29,764.85
Nose 9 18.65 167.85
Totals 547.62 59,766.15

The change in moment from BEW with empty PODS to full pods is 59,766.15 less 55,488.10 This is a moment of change 4,278.05.

POD baggage Arm = 115.62 Moment/weight = 4,279.05/37

BEW + 60lts wing Fuel (44kg) 44 545.62 16 263 266.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 266.62 110.65 29,501.50
LH Main 263 110.65 29,100.95
Nose 16 18.65 298.40
Totals 545.62 58,900.85

The change in moment from BEW to when we added the 44kg of fuel is 58,900.85 less 54,400.25. This is a moment change of 4,500.60.

Wing Fuel Arm = 102.29 Moment/weight = 4,519.25/44(weight added in the fuel tanks)

BEW + 60L Wing fuel Empty Ferry bladder , associated pumps and hoses 44+6 551.62 17 265 269.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 269.62 110.65 29,833.45
LH Main 265 110.65 29,322.25
Nose 17 18.65 317.05
Totals 551.62 59,472.75

The change in moment from BEW then adding 60lts wing fuel adding the ferry tank and hardware is 59,472.75 less 58,900.85. This is a moment of change  571.90

Ferry Tank Empty Arm = 95.32 Moment/weight = 571.90/6

BEW + Ferry Tank + 40lts (32kg) Fuel 44+6+32 583.62 23 278 282.62
BEW Weight ARM Moment
RH Main 282.62 110.65 31,271.90
LH Main 278 110.65 30,760.70
Nose 23 18.65 428.95
Totals 583.62 62,461.55

The change in moment from BEW then adding 60lts wing fuel adding the ferry tank and hardware is 62,461.55 less 59,472.75. This is a moment of change 2988.80

Ferry Tank FUEL Arm = 93.4 Moment/weight = 8,061.3/32

EXTRA ITEMS

For Baggage like water bottles, safety gear and anything thrown in the strake baggage area we need a DATUM that is easy to measure from so we can get our moment arm or ‘station’

The plans DATUM or zero point, is at 113.9 forward of the leading edge of the wings back to the nose. Our convenient DATUM is 47.55 back front the nose.

On the pilot side longeron just back from the panel I have scribed a line and then rubbed in a little black paint to make it easy to see. You can’t miss it. This is an adjusted datum.

To use this, measure from this cockpit scribed line and whatever you get, ADD 47.55″. This is your arm to then multiply by the weight of what you are putting in.

Lets say you are adding a water bottle that weights 2kg behind the front seat. You measure from the longeron line to the bottle, say 30″, then add 47.55 = 76.55 is your ARM, Multiply this by the weight to get the Moment which you would add on your Weight and Balance table

Strake Baggage 77″ from mark arm = 47.44 + 77 = 124.44
Rear of PIC seat 39″ from mark = 47.44 + 39 = 86.44

Here’s a spreadsheet modified from one I stole here… The site has some good weight and balance information relevant to a Long-EZ. Downloads for the ‘unmodified’ excel sheet and a measurement diagram are found there.

If I work out how to get the above sheet live, I will in case one or two people want to play with it. For now you can grab your own copy.

Overall I am very happy how things turned out. I do NOT need nose ballast despite NOT doing a long nose on the airplane. I did try to get all the weight forward that I could during the build and it has paid off. That said, 100 pounds lighter would have been better!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Engine Start July 21 2024

Date:  07-21-2024
Number of Hours:  0
Manual Reference:  23

The engine has been started, installed in my airframe. July 21st 2024. Yes it was previously run in a test cell in the USA for 25.2hours. This milestone is my first run in VH-XEZ. It was quite a journey sorting out the many engine problems, with a few still to be resolved.

Here’s the ‘money shot’ or rather video.

There were a LOT of tries this day as well as the week before. Lets roll back some time to when I thought we were going to get a start. I was planning by June 30th but that line in the sand came and went. We had  coolant leaks to deal with. We got all that sorted out, although after the above start a new leak started up that I will deal with later.

We tried for a first start July 13th, but couldn’t get the engine firing. The best we had were a few backfires. We also had quite an issue turning the thing over with anything like a usual cranking speed. Something was wrong, maybe with the timing or the batteries.

At least I was still near the hangar door.

After emails back and forth with Robert Paisley, from EFII, we received instructions on how to confirm the timing. As you may know, the flywheel is located with dowels so it can only go on one way. TDC (top dead center) was where it should be although we checked anyway.

Notice the purple ring that holds the alternator belt? This has a series of magnets in it in three positions. These are what triggers the ignition system.

Yes it is possible to have the purple pulley, the ignition trigger, in the wrong position despite the flywheel being correct.  Now you’d rightly say… “but you said the engine has already been run in the USA. So how is it possible to have the timing ring wrong? The engine was delivered with the flywheel attached!”.

Ahhh, one thing we noticed when the engine came was that the flywheel teeth were like new, like the engine hadn’t been run. Our deductive powers went into high gear and we concluded that another flywheel MUST have been used on the engine.

Maybe this lightweight one was misplaced or not on hand when they built the engine? Then they swapped it over at the last minute before sending it over the Pacific to me.

After a lot of head scratching and two tries, we confirmed the flywheel AND the re-positioned timing ring were both now in the correct place.

That’s me on the right. My unnamed avionics and all round expert on so many other things used the battery cart and we connected direct to the starter motor. Yes with the timing in place and enough power to the starter we got ‘the beast’ fired up.

I have #4 AWG cable running from the batteries in the nose to the starter and back again. That’s around 30 feet and the voltage drop with that size over that distance turned out to be a deal breaker. 450 amps was measured momentarily during cranking! A combination of wire too thin and a tight high compression engine.

I have ordered #2AWG CCA wire from the USA to replace what is now in the plane. It is less than a pound heavier and I should have gone with it in the first place.The copper clad aluminium wire is lighter than straight copper and more importantly it has less voltage drop over distance than pure copper 2AWG cable.

This is a pretty big job as the main wire looms have to come out and bigger P-clamps put in. I have to remove the coolant pumps, radiators and a lot of other things to get access. I am also looking at the same footprint batteries but there are some in another brand than the Odyssey PC380’s that have more cold cranking amps. I’ll get one, and if its better, replace the second battery as well. I hope that these two factors will fix the starting issue.

On the plus side, the engine started and its just more money, work and time to fix. I’ll keep pushing.

 

 

 

 

Stick, Throttle, Fuses and Cockpit Labels

Date:  07-10-2024
Number of Hours:  3
Manual Reference:  25

Importantly, stick and throttle functions need to be labeled just like instrument panel items. There are a few legal requirements for placards that I’ll show here as well.

Throttle:

TOGA – takeoff/go around This sequences the Garmin GPS that the intended landing is now going to point to the missed approach. If the auto pilot is on, that of course follows its direction for the missed. The small white button is on the front of the throttle, just right of the picture.

LANDING BRAKE – this has three positions, up, down and it can be paused in its travel for a partial open brake. Indications are on the G3X. The switch operates a linear actuator that opens and closes the brake. On the plans version of a Long-EZ, this is mechanical. There is also an auto function, if the brake is down but I engage full throttle, it will come up and close. The switch then needs to be cycled to go back to normal operations.

LO HI LND LIGHT – the front landing light has a boost where it drains a few more amps but gets brighter. I’d use this for night landing but just the low setting during the day if I want a recognition light.

COM 2 FLIP FLOP AUD.PLAY BACK – Com2 is the G3X com while my main one is on the GTN750. This red toggle has a center and two positions. Pull back and I get the flip/flop on the com. Push forward and it ties in with the audio panel and I can use it to repeat a radio transmission I’ve just received. I don’t know how this will work in practice.

PPT – Push to talk. That’s the small white switch on the raised portion at the bottom of the picture. It doesn’t have a label. I also have one on the stick. The idea is that given I’m right handed if I’m writing down a clearance I can use my left hand for transmitting.

POINT LIGHT  This is the 4 way hat top switch at the front of the throttle. This controls the angle of the headlight, up, down, left and right. The light sits on a car mirror mechanism so its easy to relate to what it does,

In a Long-EZ the approach can be quite flat so you’d want the light pointing down towards the runway. Once you land you’d want it pointed more level so that you can see the runway turnoffs and taxiways. In fact, the side to side idea is also for those turnoffs. Night is challenging at unfamiliar airports where all you have are often little lights on the runway and taxiway to guide you and not a lot else.

The white button is the TOGA

STICK

TRIM – This is the 4 way hat top switch on the top. It controls elevator trim up and down and aileron trim left to right. The elevator trim being critical given I have no mechanical trim. This is run with a linear actuator and goes through the Garmin system as well as a part of the Auto pilot system.

I have safeguards in place and it will be tested extensively to ensure I can overcome forces manually should anything go wrong. I do have trim runaway protection but nothing is perfect.

A/P DISC – The RED button. Disconnects the autopilot. Pretty important.

I think if you hold it down you can also disconnect the auto function where even with the AP off, if the Garmin doesn’t like what the plane is doing it will set things back on the straight and level.

INTELI VOICE – This is the green button. Garmin supports voice commands. I press this button and then tell things what to do. It has a limited vocabulary and I have to learn what is useful, if anything.

COM1 FLIP FLOP – This is the light blue button on the left side of the stick and is a simple frequency flip flop for the GTN750 radio. It will get plenty of use between say Melb Center and a CTAF if thats how I set them.

PPT – Push to Talk. A big red button you can see looking down. On the left side in the next photo. Like pulling the trigger to communicate. No, not forward guns or the missile drop.

COM1 CH UP/DN – This is the silver momentary toggle switch. It moves presets on the GTN750 radio up or down.

I don’t know how much I’ll use this. It was too much work to make this function do something else when we revisited it after a couple of years. In the meantime Garmin software updates had made new options possible.

FUSES

Old school.

There are electronic fuses via the VPX system and through the G3X but these are the traditional Klixon, relating to engine critical functions, pitch trim and the auto pilot. They are reset-able and available to pull if I ever need to inflight.

While we are at it, a late addition to the controls:
ALT AIR This operates a slide door opening in the induction pipe, after the air filter in case it is ever blocked so that the engine can get emergency air. Maybe ice, a messy, bird strike or a forgetful pilot leaving the intake air cover on would be situations where this might be used.

AUX WT PUMP I have two coolant (water) pumps plumbed in series. One is always on with the engine power and is speed controlled via a temperature sensor. The other is a back up for coolant boost or if the first pump fails.

Seat Heaters The two switches are for the front and back seat heaters. They have a hi and low setting. The left one is for PIC the right for PAX.

The other two switches are extras, doing nothing and yet to be assigned.

Here is the required EXPERIMENTAL declaration.

The CASA required passenger warning placard. I like to think my standards are even higher than those required for a certified plane. I can think what I like, CASA still requires the warning.

Here’s the ‘data plate’. While other have more information, the regs just require these three items. The serial number is DB001, a bit hard to see in the photo. The steel rego placard is no longer required but I liked it and someone made me one so I added it.