lperagallo
11-24-2007, 04:50 PM
Well, I ventured out today to get some flying in, Ron makes me jealous with his great weather and great flying. It was 38 degrees and only an 8 MHP wind. If my darn hands didn't freeze it would have been more fun. It would also have been nice if the normal grey Indiana sky wasn't so grey. Makes it hard to see the orientation.
The Gasser ran OK, but I really need to play with the tuning now that it's this cold. Did some loops and stall turns and warmed myself up for the turbine.
The turbine takes a bit more Powermax gas to fire up on these cold days. First time I saw the turbine smoke as it started up. Took almost a minute before the smoke stopped. Once cooking though it was sweet! Nothing weather wise seems to bother that bird. Had it doing loops and stall turns, along with high speed figure 8's and general playing around. On my second flight I had a strange thing occur. My 611 gyro decided that I should practice slow piros to the left without telling me. I lifted off and then it started. I thought I hit my rudder trim so I landed and checked. Nope! I looked at the tail and saw the pitch slider slowly move to the right until it was at the end point. I shut down and powered it off and back on. No more problem. Then I restarted and everything went fine. That was strange. Maybe I went into the turbine start sequence before the gyro had finished initializing, I don't know.
I also found out that I only get 2 1/2 starts on a gas fill. Wouldn't catch on the third start. Normally I get 6 starts on one fill. I guess the cold really makes a difference on how much Powermax it takes to get the proper temperatures to fire up. No videos today as everyone thought I was crazy to go fly in the cold.
Oh well, there's always tomorrow. It'll be a heat wave at 42 degrees. Wind should be the same. I'll see if I can blackmail someone to come out and film me.
Lou
The Gasser ran OK, but I really need to play with the tuning now that it's this cold. Did some loops and stall turns and warmed myself up for the turbine.
The turbine takes a bit more Powermax gas to fire up on these cold days. First time I saw the turbine smoke as it started up. Took almost a minute before the smoke stopped. Once cooking though it was sweet! Nothing weather wise seems to bother that bird. Had it doing loops and stall turns, along with high speed figure 8's and general playing around. On my second flight I had a strange thing occur. My 611 gyro decided that I should practice slow piros to the left without telling me. I lifted off and then it started. I thought I hit my rudder trim so I landed and checked. Nope! I looked at the tail and saw the pitch slider slowly move to the right until it was at the end point. I shut down and powered it off and back on. No more problem. Then I restarted and everything went fine. That was strange. Maybe I went into the turbine start sequence before the gyro had finished initializing, I don't know.
I also found out that I only get 2 1/2 starts on a gas fill. Wouldn't catch on the third start. Normally I get 6 starts on one fill. I guess the cold really makes a difference on how much Powermax it takes to get the proper temperatures to fire up. No videos today as everyone thought I was crazy to go fly in the cold.
Oh well, there's always tomorrow. It'll be a heat wave at 42 degrees. Wind should be the same. I'll see if I can blackmail someone to come out and film me.
Lou