Monday 26 September 2016

Final inspection, ground running again and more.


I’m very happy to report that G-FUUN went through it’s final inspection with no issues!

Pete Wells flew over on Tuesday evening in his Twister and had a thorough look at everything and long chat with Rex my inspector.

Pete concluded by saying “Well, I can’t find anything wrong with it”.

High praise indeed.

Rex has gone to France for 1.5 weeks so we will complete the last lot of paperwork for the permit to fly on his return. Then it will be in the hands of the LAA as to how long it takes for all this paperwork to be processed.

I’m thinking 2 months at the moment for that to happen - if it happens sooner then I will be pleasantly surprised. This now puts us into November for a first flight - not a month known for it’s balmy weather...

Regarding the rough running engine. I took the fine filter to pieces and was surprised to see that it was clean inside. Before disassembly, after waiting 3 days for the residual fuel in it to evaporate, I tried the blow test again and could find no real difference between it and a new filter. So the fine filter was not the cause of the rough running.

Time to do some more investigating.

I phoned Pete Wells and asked what static RPM he got with his Hercules and he said about 2,400 to 2,500. I am getting 2,500 so that is all good. So the engine is revving out correctly and giving the correct static RPM.

He said that with his GT props one is slightly finer pitch than the other - so Chris Burkett can keep up and accelerate better when formatting on Pete (Chris has the finer pitch propped plane)

Pete also said so long as he gets 2,400rpm static then they are good to go.

I found out on my second engine run that the backup fuel pump was not delivering the correct PSI - it dropped to 36 PSI and stayed there and is also making a funny noise - so I am going to replace it. That would explain my rough running engine when using that pump. The other pump has the correct PSI.

When run on the master fuel pump the engine runs sweetly and smoothly.

I also found out from Mark Jones at Galaxy what happened to the fuel pump that failed last year - you may remember when I switched it on for the first time it ‘popped’ then failed to work. Mark’s reply is below:

Indeed there was a fault, ULP looked investigated it and found a manufacturing fault by the pump manufacturer. A small piece of swarf was found in the armature and that is what jammed it up. A very rare and isolated case.

Quite a few little jobs to do now. A compass swing, and calibration of the Dynon compass, fuel sender calibration and a few other things, not to mention that paperwork!


I've been getting many compliments on the cowl and G-FUUN's general good looks.

Further evidence of the paint screw up. Note that the orange (without clear coat here as it is under the black) has chemically bonded to the primer (unlike the black) and has not been affected by the fuel.
 

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