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Homebuilder's Workshop: Learning the RV-9A
By Ed Wischmeyer
So with the RV-9A in hand, it was time to learn to fly her properly. I’d made a few landings with the previous owner, and knew that I could land her safely, but that’s not nearly the same as flying the plane well.
Some of the quirks had to do with keeping the cylinder head temperatures at an acceptable level on climbout. A friend and I pulled the top cowling and found air leaks, fixing the easy ones at the front of the cowl. The engine still runs warm on takeoff and climb, but at 110 knots or so, the CHTs stay below 400 (most of the time) and the rate of climb is good, even with a fixed pitch prop. Even with the air leaks fixed, the engine air inlets are sized for cruise, so the high temperatures in climb may just be a fact of life.
With that relatively high climb speed, the RV-9A would not be good for mixing it up with Cessna 152s and 172s in the pattern. You’d eat ‘em up in the climb part of the traffic pattern.
The level off technique is like in other airplanes, only more so. In my Cessna, I’d start easing the power off 100 feet below the desired altitude, with the climb speed being the same as the pattern speed, 90 MPH or 80 knots. In the RV-9A, pattern speed is 60 knots, way slow because the plane doesn’t go down and slow down very well. The technique is to pull the power back to 1,200 RPM, traffic pattern power setting, a full 300 feet below pattern altitude. This lets you coast up and slow down at the same time.
Homebuilders' Workshop: February 2015
People
By Ed Wischmeyer
EAA founder, Paul Poberezny, said that people come to EAA for the airplanes and stay for the people. For whatever reason, that seems an appropriate reminiscence on this clear, brisk Georgia winter afternoon.
The current issue of EAA Sport Aviation has a marvelous summary of the U.S. homebuilding movement, written by Richard VanGrunsven, the “RV” in the RV series of airplanes. In addition to being perhaps the preeminent homebuilt kit vendor, Van knew some of the very earliest homebuilders who coincidentally lived nearby in Oregon.
I first met Van at Oshkosh one year, about the time that the RV-4 came out. I had sent him three dollars or so for an information packet, and it came in the mail. Then I noticed an ad that said that the information packet was four dollars, but he had sent me the information packet anyway. At Oshkosh, I gave him the extra buck, and we had maybe a brief conversation.
Homebuilders Workshop: January 2015
Hope for the eFIRC
By Ed Wischmeyer
By way of happy accident, I managed to establish correspondence with George Perry, Senior Vice President who has taken over leading the (AOPA) Air Safety Institute. One thing led to another, and I was talked into taking their eFIRC, electronic (online) Flight Instructor Refresher Clinic.
The bottom line? Good things are starting to happen at ASI. The eFIRC show’s balance, perspective, candor and even humor are so refreshing to see in an aviation course, or any other course, for that matter. Dogmatism is diminished. These are all harbingers of good things to come and a very welcome change from past offerings.
Homebuilders Workshop: December 2014
Well and Truly Grounded
By Ed Wischmeyer
There’s a trick to avoiding having the FAA ground you for medical reasons. Just like in telling a joke, the answer is “timing.”
In my latest case, the problem is scoliosis, meaning, that my spine is not straight, but rather looks like the ground track of a pilot landing with a tailwheel for the first time. That spinal curvature puts pressure on the nerves coming out of the spinal column (stenosis) and that causes pain and, I’m guessing, eventually, could cause lack of full functionality.
The king-kong fix for this is spinal fusion, meaning, the doctor opens his erector set catalog to “implants” and gets all the metal bits and pieces to hold the selected vertebra in place until they can grow together, i.e., fuse. The downside of this is that with those vertebra rigidly affixed, stresses accumulate at the end of the fused region. A real world example is that on many sailplanes with extra stiffening around the spoilers, eventually the paint cracks around the end of the spoilers, indicating the stress.
Homebuilder's Workshop - November 2013
Perspectives
By Ed Wischmeyer
So now that I’ve rejoined the ranks of “real” pilots with a homebuilt taildragger, namely an RV-8, here are my unimpeachable thoughts on life, the universe, and all that.
Tailwheel vs. Nosewheel
Actually, there are several kinds of tailwheel skills. There’s the faster landing tailwheel airplanes like the RV-8, and the slow landing kind like the AirCam I used to own. When I got the RV-8, it was a real surprise how much my skills had degraded. A tailwheel airplane will keep your skills at a level higher than required for a nosewheel airplane. But the flip side is that the nosewheel airplane is easier to land when you’re tired or in ugly wind conditions (safety), at night if you’re trying to make a wheel landing, and a nosewheel gives you over the nose visibility when taxiing (safety). There are few circumstances that legitimately demand a tailwheel, so the nosewheel wins hands down. But I’m not in any hurry to sell my new RV-8.
Homebuilders Workshop - September 2013
More Oshkosh Details
By Ed Wischmeyer
The gating factor for flying to AirVenture on the airlines is not airfare, it’s rental car rates. This year, I was late renting a car, and the rates in Appleton and Madison were both well north of $100 per day. However, Milwaukee still had rates a third of that, so that’s the airport I flew into. And for an extra $10 per day or so, I rented a Mustang.
The Mustang’s speedometer needle turned through only 180 degrees of arc, and the markings looked like they’d been copied from the 1970s – cluttered and hard to read. There were numerical readouts between the tach and speedometer that were clear and crisp, but the radio etc. panel in the center of the car had pixels as big as pizzas and as dim as your old girl friend. With the floaty suspension and the imprecise steering, you kind of herded the Mustang down the road as the slow-shifting automatic transmission encouraged the engine to make raucous noises before acceleration set in.
To be fair, this was a rental car, and there are undoubtedly other versions that are better tuned, but even the high-powered Mustang in the Ford pavilion had the same funky clunky speedometer markings. Disappointing.
My new RV-8 has very precise handling, by comparison, and I’m well on the way to flying it as well as I used to fly the old RV-4. Part of the drill is to do wheel landings and keep the tail up in the air as long as possible, and part of the drill is to not overcorrect on the steering. That’s all coming back, and today’s flight was at a much lower anxiety level than past flights. Now to start getting the G-tolerance back, something that might take a while at age 64. But back to Oshkosh.
Homebuilder's Workshop - August 2012
RV-14
By Ed Wischmeyer
Outside Van’s booth early in the morning before the crowds arrived. (Ed Wischmeyer)On Sunday at AirVenture, Van’s Aircraft’s Chief Engineer, Ken Krueger, was dropping helpful hints about a new RV-14. Carbon fiber, twin engine, amphibious, vertical takeoff and landing – and aerobatic! You get the idea… Van himself mentioned an RV-14, but gave no details, and for all I knew he was pulling my leg, too. But then on Monday, there was the RV-14 prototype.
The superficial description is that it is a two-seat RV-10, with slightly smaller dimensions. In a sense that’s true, but the start of the RV-14 was with people who were building RV-7s and putting in tons of junk so that they were overweight, as were the pilots, frequently. Krueger said that some of those were so overweight as to be miniature F-104s, a nice exaggeration. So in one sense, the RV-14 is a gadgeteer’s version of the RV-7, able to carry more weight, and with more room.
Homebuilder's Workshop - October 2011
Vance AFB, Oklahoma
By Ed Wischmeyer
Ninety minutes north of Oklahoma City by car is Vance AFB in Enid, Okla., where my nephew recently got his Air Force pilot wings.
Leon Vance was a native of Enid – the Air Force folk refer to them as “Enoids” – and a WWII bomber pilot who won the Congressional Medal of Honor. The transport plane bringing him home was lost over the North Atlantic, after he survived a harrowing and heroic ditching of his B-24. But the relationship between Air Force and community is deeper than that – the citizens of Enid bought a wheat field and donated that for the then Army Air Corps to build a training base.
Wheat? In Oklahoma? Yes. Enid actually has the world’s third largest wheat storage capacity, and a grouping of maybe 30 concrete silos is referred to by the pilots as “the battleship.” This year, though, the drought is ferocious and this July was a contender for being the hottest month ever. Cloud bases were at 9,000 feet and the 25-knot wind did no cooling but only parched those out on the 100-plus degree flightline. Coming back into the air-conditioned flight ops building, there is a large fan at chest level to help you cool off.
Homebuilders' Workshop - August 2011
Georgia On My Mind
By Ed Wischmeyer
The good news is that after 38 months of unemployment and 600 job applications, I’m now a contract employee with a major aerospace manufacturer in Savannah, GA. And that, in turn, leads us to the unlikely history of the RV-8A that I used to own.
The story starts nearly five years ago when I bought an AirCam at government auction at a screamingly good price. The plan was to fly it for three or four years and then sell it for enough to cover purchase price plus all the expenses of ownership. When I bought it, I lived in Arizona and thoroughly enjoyed flying it there. But, nine months after purchase, I (and it) moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Aerial sightseeing in the Midwest is not spectacular, like it is in other parts of the country, but the Midwest in summer is as beautiful as any other part of the country. Trouble was, summer – even stretching the definition to mean any time the temperature was above 50 degrees, sort of a minimum required temperature for a tolerable AirCam flight – was at best six months of the year. The AirCam was advertised for sale several times, but then I changed the ad to say, “Might trade for the right RV-8.”
Homebuilder's Workshop - July 2011
Oliver Springs, Tennessee
By Ed Wischmeyer
My old Garmin 396 couldn’t find Oliver Springs airport, which is near Oak Ridge, Tenn., which is near Knoxville, Tenn., which is – aw, go look it up – but airnav.com and the trusty map application on my ancient, first generation iPhone could. AT&T cell phone service actually works way out here in the sticks in Tennessee.
What a cool place! Grass runway, a few hangars – one with a door, one with a few tarps across it, and a great selection of airplanes. There are three or four Cessna 182s, some 172s, and an immaculate Cessna 150 that’s been in the family for over 30 years. The owner was waiting for her instructor to show up to give her a BFR, and she explained, in her soft, Tennessee accent, that her husband had died a year ago. But the last thing he did was to rebuild the airplane, making everything new, and giving it an immaculate paint job. She also says that there are two flying clubs on the field.
Homebuilder's Workshop - May 2011
The Steps of Iowa
By Ed Wischmeyer
When I got my new (to me) RV-8A, the boarding step was broken and needed to be replaced. No problem, says I. I’ve owned an RV before. I’ve bought used homebuilts before.
I should have known better.
But on with the show. The first part of the process was to drill out all of the rivets holding the old step on, some going through the steel step assembly, some going through the wing root fairing, some through both. Drill ‘em all out, tug on the step, and, ta, da! Nothing.
Oh. There’s a bolt inside the fuselage. Okay…
Homebuilder's Workshop - February 2011
Post Chorny
By Ed Wischmeyer
The passing of Chorny, my sweet old black Lab, in some ways marks the end of one era of my life and hopefully the start of another era, building upon – and even better than – its forbears.
Chorny made her last flight with me, her first in the RV-8A, to the old family summering grounds in Michigan. It was surprising to me to be so content blasting along at altitude at 170 knots, a mile up, and to be so oblivious to the scenery below, scenery that was the domain of the AirCam and the Cessna, scenery marveled at and researched after lower flights in slower aircraft.
The RV-8A didn’t care about the scenery on the ground. It flew in the sky.
Homebuilders' Workshop - December 2010
Remembering Chorny
By Ed Wischmeyer
“A man’s best friend is his dog,” goes the story, but the famous concluding argument by trial lawyer Senator George Graham Vest was never completely recorded. My dog, Chorny, was my best friend in her canine-like way through turbulent times.
Chorny was a black Lab, and she was given to us at the age of 5 ½ weeks, too young, two months before we got married. She did all the usual puppy things that you’ve heard about other dogs, but she did her own things, too.
Whenever she was in a new environment, Chorny needed to see what was going on, and then she was okay. We bought the 1959 Cessna “Bumblebee” and, with the avionics freshly but partially installed, were preparing to load up the plane and head to Michigan, with the wife (now ex-), a slug of baggage, and the pup. But first we had to have a test flight and make sure that the pup would accept the airplane.
Homebuilders Workshop - October 2010
First Flight: It Takes A “Flying” Village
By Ed Wischmeyer
John is meticulous. Today, he will launch his years of work into the air for the first time, the paperwork now declaring that his RV-10 is officially an airplane.
At one point, there were four RV-10s being built in this high desert region of three towns and 100,000 people. One man had his almost finished but sold it, almost ready to fly, because he needed the capital for his business. Another man completed the tail kit, but, having seen the scope of the entire project, considered his age, the time he wanted to spend with his grandchildren, and the RV-7 that he already had flying, sold his beautifully crafted tail kit. My project was sold when I got divorced and moved away, but I sold my finishing kit to John, and some of the parts that will first fly today were once mine.
Homebuilder's Workshop - August 2010
Ready for Sloshkosh
By Ed Wischmeyer
In a normal year, I’d be in Oshkosh before the show had even started, either unloading at the farmhouse or wandering around the grounds, getting keys and such. This year, however, a good friend is getting married and his family is stayed with me—a treat. So, when Sunday afternoon came along, I went home from the reception, changed clothes, loaded the car with the Oshkosh stuff and the pup and headed on over.
You’ve probably read by now that Oshkosh has had record-setting rain this month, and even though they didn’t get the seven inches of rain that closed the Milwaukee airport for a while, there’s been enough that there is no airplane parking, no camping allowed and no wheeled vehicles on the grass. Though sunny days did make an appearance, there’s an organization that can deal with that kind of wet mess, it’s got to be EAA. They’ve got volunteers that really know how to get things done.
Homebuilder's Workshop - June 2010
Watch Out for Loopholes and Potholes
By Ed Wischmeyer
Here’s one that you should not be happy about. The government charting office, whatever they call themselves these days, has decided that they need to make more/lose less money. So they will no longer sell charts to outlets that sell less that $5,000 worth of charts per year, and, they’ve tightened up their policy on returned charts. What this means, then, is that you probably can’t get up to date charts at your local airport. I can’t. Or maybe at any airport nearby.
Homebuilder's Workshop - April 2010
I’m Alive, I Promise
By Ed Wischmeyer
My nephew graduated from Duke last fall, one of only a handful of Air Force ROTC there. For a graduation present, I invited him to come spend a few days with me, and we flew maybe seven hours in the Cessna and an hour in the AirCam. He’s now most of the way through IFS, Initial Flight Screening, where potential air crew get a chance to show that they are in tune with and will succeed in the Air Force’s style of flight training.
Homebuilder's Workshop - March 2010
Snow Blower Follies
By Ed Wischmeyer
Even the natives have been tired of this Iowa winter since two weeks after the first snowfall, and that was what? Thirteen years ago, without a break? But I’m probably repeating myself. Again.
Damn snow.
Here’s a story that has nothing to do with homebuilding, but is still pretty interesting. Out in the garage is a big old Sears snow blower, one-year-old, kind of a big boy’s toy when the snow is only an inch or so deep, but pretty useful for clearing sidewalks when they’re four- or five-inches deep. One of the problems is the thing is so big and clunky that you sort of have a choice between the effort of pushing and shoveling snow and the effort of rasslin’ with the snow blower. But I digress. Then again, this whole section is a digression. But then… never mind.
Homebuilder's Workshop - February 2010
Snow Job
By Ed Wischmeyer
Iowa is gorgeous during the summer and not bad during spring and fall. Right now, however, it’s winter, and we’re all celebrating the latest meteorological extravagance – not only did we have two days in a row above freezing, the night between those two days was also above freezing. But no more, now we’re back to highs in the low teens and lows in the high sub-zeroes.
Today was light snow, but drifting like mad in the winds, gusting to 45 knots. But drifting snow can show amazing aerodynamic effects.
For example, did you ever see a photograph of the leading edge of the Concorde wing, with the gentle curls and swoops in it? I regularly see that same contour in the snowdrift that forms from the front flowerbed onto the front porch.