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TEST FLYING THIS THING... |
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FIRST FLIGHT WERE 9.10.2004, 1100 am. |
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After I got engine run OK in ground, I had moment of thruth. Will this Super Koala Fly? Of course I was very confident and all paperwork and signing this plane airworthy went well. I only needed to change planes register numbering by the rules (side note: I hate to have these big numbers in fuselage, but can't help, rules seems to be rules... This is story of it's own) Anyway I had no further reasons to keep this on ground. SO FLYING IT WAS AHEAD! |
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I was prepared to make first flight myself. I have some, not much, but couple of hours in quite similar plane before and also almoust all other my previous flying is with tailwheeled planes. I also made practice flight in other plane before first flight. With my Koala I started first taxiing it back and fort in airfield to get some feeling of controls. Last taxi runs were actually flying on ground. I got feeling that it is "sensitive" in ground but easily manageable. I had some 10 hours in engine before first flight. So It was time to fill some gas and take off... |
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At least here we had some air bethween ground and tires. At first flight aileron cables were too loose and I had only marginal controll in roll, so I changed my initial flight plan from gentle turning for 30 mins to only even more gentle turn and cautious landing after 10 mins. That went OK after all. For this kind of reasons it is really important to have absolutely good flying weather with no wind conditions in first flights.
Before second flight I tightened aileron cables, added couple of guides for those to reduce vibration and that gave me aileron controll. Ailerons are quite heavy to use compared to other controls. That feels not so good and indicates some problem in controll harmony. It is flyable as it is but something maight be done in future. |
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This pile of pipes is making lots of drag! Must do something to that also in some time... |
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OK, here are we. Testpilot (me) and CoPilot (Koala) doing some testing at 3000 feet. I just wonder if this hiding behaind my back feels safer than siting on copilots seat.
On sunday 14.11.2004 I made one hour flight (total time is only 2 hours now). I still need to pull on stick so we are in need to further adjust stabilator. Engine is working OK now, maybe just little lean side on top end. Taped gap between aileron and wing. That maybe gave little more aileron authority, hard to say, but forse on stick is still more than I like. I tested flaps first position and found that it performed OK. Also I tested to stall this first time. Nothing dramatic, but this was really slow approach to stall speed that seems to be something like 30mph (50km/h) clean with one on board. |
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SOME DATA SO FAR: (may change with progress, only 2 hours on plane)
Climb speed: 45 knots / 450 feet/min
Cruise speed: 2800 RPM / 55 knots (3000 RPM / 60 knots)
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CLICK HERE TO GO TO MORE TESTFLYING IN 2005 |
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