Log 92 - My First Glasair 88ET, Test and Solo Flight

Another crazy day in life! April 23, 2013. It all comes together again. I've Cessna practiced the last few days. Terry plans to come by for the second flight after some cowling modification. He flies and temperatures are fairly good and all other issues are very minimal. While conditions are very mellow, I choose to fuel up and fly solo, myself my Glasair.

This is a point in life where everything is focused on the flight. It's hard to even tell there are instruments in the plane to watch every moment but I was watching while lifting off the ground. "basic checklist, talk to the tower and don't forget the tail wheel lock!", I thinking through. Full power, smooth, rotate nose down a little and I'm off! I'd never seen the Dynon flight deck spool up like this so trying accustom where everything is located again while on a really fast climb out (to me, maybe 110 mph). I climbed to about 2,000 ft and level off around 150 - 160 mph and all feels good. Intention is to orbit over the field, climb more than eventually come down to land. While the guys are waiting for me, I spent about 20 minutes mostly in a left rectangle doing small maneuvers, a few stalls, speed variations, different flap settings, radio work with the tower. Tower tells me to go higher so I climb to around 3,000 ft. The rate seems so good that I'm careful to notice out the window, the climb rate. I settle down, took a few photos and listened for a space in the landing pattern after a Cessna was approaching from the west over the Puget Sound so with permission, I descended with a few 360's entered the downwind, slowed to about 100, put on some flaps, on base used two hands to put on more flaps, than final approach. On final I was ready for the most difficult part of the flight in my opinion and leveled in a decent. The approach was a little too tight and descending a little too much. Upon touch down, I anticipated too much and started to bounce because of stick movement so went back up and mentioned to go around the pattern again to the tower. It felt so good and nobody was following me so I just cruised further down the runway, 34 left, and settle for a good two point landing and roll out. The plane settled very nice and I taxied off the runway. Just a little sweat on the palms and checked my breathing. All was good!

Back to the hangar, got a few pointers to keep working the small issues related to cooling, instrument calibration and few other minor issues which will take time to work out. Lets see if I can stay focused on fixing those items with a little flying in between. Just leave everything, go home and eat and sleep like a normal person now.

Note - between Post 90 and this, I was busy with other thing in life, so the list was quiet. I did get a chance to modify the cowling, check dynamic timing, re-seal the engine baffling area, submit my repairman's certificate application to the FAA and other things related to the plane, but best to just be patient and keep things going slowly. All's been very good and so far, successful.

Photos from today start around here. Click right to scroll through.