After roughly six years of construction, the squeezing of around18,000 rivets, and what felt like miles of wiring, N707XP defies gravity and takes flight!
As a fellow builder. It’s awesome to see the end product fly and the excitement associated with it. It’s motivation for me to get through my tanks on my -10. Congrats
Thanks William. Oddly enough, the tanks were one of my favorite parts of the build. It started feeling "real" at that point for me. Keep at it, you'll get there eventually, even though at times it seems like it will never happen!
Congratulations!! Really encouraging to imagine myself in your position in a few years. -10 Empennage complete. Wings arriving late September. Thank You for sharing!
As I have said before your perseverance is humbling. I’m looking forward to sharing the fruits of your labor in the years to come. Congratulations my friend!
Wow Amazing accomplishment and First flight So glad you were on the runway centerline and looking professional… love the spectacular video of your flight it was an end to the beginning that most humans cannot even imagine…even me… But it was great fun watching you the past 6 years putting that fine machine together … Now I want a ride !!!
Wow!! Congratulations! You just built an airplane and flew it! That is really impressive! I'll be happy if I can get my weed eater to start this weekend! 😜
Thank you! Yes, fast on final, but purposeful. Knew I had long runway, and an uncalibrated stall warning horn, so just being cautious. Plus, if you land nice and short on the RWY, it just means you have to taxi a long way down on the RWY to my turnoff. I always land to left of the center line on that RWY because the lights protrude so much, it's dangerous to my tires.
Nice video and congrats on the project. I flew mine for the first time last week. This week we flew again with the fairings installed. Flew nice for the first 10 minutes and then suddenly as we were accelerating through some bumps the nose yawed big time to the left. Wasn't sure what it was at the time but i figured it was either we lost a wheel pant or the nosewheel cocked to one side. Needed a fair bit of Left pedal to keep the ball centered. I'm assuming it was the nosewheel as when I checked the breakout force on the nose it was way below what i had originally set it to. Maybe your breakout was less abrupt as I'm surprised you didn't mention it during your flight/video. Looking forward to more videos from you!
Thanks James, After reading your post on Vansairforce.net, I lifted the nose wheel to check the breakout forced required to move the wheel left and right. Years ago, I set it at 26lbs per the manual. Checked it, and it was at 10lbs! After taxiing around and all that, it must have settled in at a nice even 10. All good now after re-tightening and thanks for your post, it fixed that issue.
Beautiful job! congratulations!!! you prob noticed, but nose wheel pant seems to cause canter to the left. wont this wear the heck out of your tire if it gets a side load every landing?
Thank you sir! The nose wheel is a castering wheel, but it does not swing freely. It takes 26 pounds of force to move it left or right. I'm not sure if it is the same on your Cirrus. Sometimes, if there is enough crosswind, the nose wheel will get pushed a bit sideways and stay there. This most likely happened when I turned right, to get on to the downwind leg for landing. It was windy that day below 3k feet. Thanks for the good question.
@@gwfowler Thanks for the comment. So, on the RV-10, manual says to tighten the big nut with the cotter pin until it takes 26 pounds of force to move the wheel left or right, when lifted off the ground of course. I did that, years ago. After taxiing, it settled out to only 10 lbs of force! So, tightened it up, and after 20 hours, its flies in line the airplane, like it should.
The nose wheel is a castering wheel, but it does not swing freely. It takes 26 pounds of force to move it left or right. Sometimes, if there is enough crosswind, the nose wheel will get pushed a bit sideways and stay there. This most likely happened when I turned right, to get on to the downwind leg for landing. It was windy that day below 3k feet. Thanks for the good question.
So the line on the runway is called the center line. You land middle of runway not down wind side. Arcata-Eureka Airporta 14-32 is 6000 feet long. You rolled out on the over run. Smooth is great but running off the end of the runway is bad. Get it on the ground. Brakes don't work when the tires are off the ground. Ha ha. Just busting your chops, but floating like that is bad. LEARN cross wind side slip upi never banked into the wind.
@@aaronpatterson8308 Are you kidding? If that's KACV Runway 14-32 does't have CL lights. Yes you offset a foot L or R, so nose wheel doesn't go thunk thunk thunk thunk. You still should be close. Don't let cross wind fly plane for you. Congrats on the 1st flight.
@@aaronpatterson8308 CL lights? Interesting. IAP chart Airport diagram, A/FD shows no CL. NOTAM is until 2024. It is in FDC NOTAMS. This is a good reminder to me to review FDC NOTAMS. Humm. Seems like they removed them? The video does not appear tp show them.(that I can see since CL are raised). Irrelevant, just neard-ing out on aviation data.. You do you, but I will say CL is not that common. I fly domestic and international to large airports. I can tell you CL lights are not on all or even many runways. GA airports CL is even more rare. *I would not fear the CL to the point of landing off center line every time.* Some runways are narrow and center line is the goal especially with cross winds. I personally don't make it a policy to land off CL, only the exception. If I am getting thump thump thump I make a small correction and get off CL (in a B767). In my personal RV7 it is a tail wheel, so it's pretty much a non issue. As a RULE landing if not on the ground by 1/3 to 1/2 runway I go around. If I have to use the over run to stop that would be a pucker factor of 10. I built a RV-4 and the RV-7. I can operate off 600 ft fairly easy at sea level hard surface, 1000' short grass. You know RV's have very low stall speeds, especially in ground effect. Also this is my last reply to you Sir. Ha ha. Take care and fly safe my friend...great job.
