Retiring from Aviation and Selling all Inventory

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Vision Parts for Sale List to post to Blog.xlsx

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Parts from my Quickie Q2

Fantastic flight to disasterous runway excursion at 10 hours flight time

What a fantastic flight I had May 27 before the runway excursion.  All my work to improve oil temperatures and fuel pressure were successful , she trimmed out fantastic and the auto pilot worked like a charm.

 Unfortunately I have done major damage to my recently finished "Vision" homebuilt aircraft.  Thankfully no personal injuries to me after a wonderful flight of 2.8 hours at the 9 hour flight time mark.  Coming in to land at Springbank, I had a few go around landing attempts, then all was looking perfect for alignment and sink rate, but a  2 ft bounce turned me 20 degrees into a bit of crosswind and I headed off the runway 26 to the right.  As I rolled out into the grass I figured this is no big deal.  Then the ditch appeared in front of me. It was six foot deep and about 25 ft across. The plane pancaked into the bottom of the ditch with the nose cone resting on the far bank of the ditch.

 The landing gear folded back under the wing which snapped the engine mount in a few places and levered the engine nose down which partially broke the firewall upper half away from the main fuselage structure.  Air scoop was destroyed and the lower cowling was substantially damaged.  I had previously stopped the engine and the propeller was horizontal without damage to the engine or propeller.

 Presently I am taking the aircraft apart and have decided I am not going to repair the damage. Maybe someone younger than me will be interested in doing the repairs to get it in the air once again. It needs the firewall rebuilt, gear straightened, engine mount rebuilt, and lower cowling and air intake scoop rebuilt.  But for the time being I will continue disassembly. If I don't find a interested purchaser then will  disassemble and sell off all the individual valuable items.  I am about to turn 75 in a few months and I know I don’t have it in me to rebuild the airplane.  Stop by to have a look if you wish.

 

Mechanical fuel pump shroud construction

 January 15 2025

As mentioned earlier I have had issues with my fuel pressure getting as low as .5 lbs.  I have already made stainless steel exhaust pipe deflectors and wrapped heat protective wrap around my fuel lines.  After still having issues I then made a ram air scoop to increase the air volume to my oil cooler.  This second update made a world of difference and reduced my engine temperature by 24 degrees fahrenheit.  The issue was that my mechanical fuel pump would get too hot and the slow moving fuel would then vaporize at times of extended taxiing on warm days.  The oil cooler scoop has made this almost a non event now.  Because I would like to be able to operate in warmer climates such as Arizona I wanted to build one more fuel coolant solution into the system.  I have made a custom built shroud to cover the mechanical fuel pump out of carbon fiber and fiberglass.

The left magneto had to be removed to install the fuel pump shroud. The cap is held in place with two screws into the lower piece.

Ergonomics of Switch Placement

 December 9 2024

Because this aircraft has a center stick it is required to think out the placement of switches in the panel for best practical use.  I have made a couple of errors in this regard and thought I would share with the others interested where my errors were.

First of all I had placed my toggle switch for my elevator trim in the center vertical panel alongside of the indicator. This I knew was going to be temporary but gave me great grief right away during test flights. I found it very awkward to use my left hand to reach across to adjust the trim switch while flying.  Luckily I have a stick grip with top mount switches and so made the rewiring to allow 2 of the top switches access to Pitch trim.  This was the plan all along but needed modification without delay. Originally I wanted to operate the RAC trim servo using the supplied parts to make sure all was working properly before modifying to the stick grip.  The trim now is very convenient to operate using the stick grip switches.

The other item I recently installed was the remote Auto Pilot (AP) engage/disconnect switch. Because your left hand is not busy usually I placed the AP switch very close to my left hand position which is on the throttle quadrant.  This position is working out very well. The AP switch has three functions, to cancel the AP if active, to engage the AP if it is not already engaged, and to enter into Control Wheel Steering (CWS) if the AP is already engaged. The CWS function is very handy as you can press and hold it which will allow you to hand steer into a new heading then release and the AP will continue on that course. Excellent for routing around clouds or whatever. So this button will get used quite often.

Finally mounted in mid panel is the Emergency Wings Level button. I placed it here so that it could be accessed by either the pilot or passenger. It would seldom be required so ergonomic placement was not critical to me.

Fourth Test Flight 2.5 hours

 October 26 2024

Finally it appears I can begin to leave the airport area and get into my engine break in hours and count down more of the 20 hours of experimental aircraft flight time required within 25 miles of my local airport. Conditions for this test flight were, as of 10 am very light winds at the surface, temperature plus 4 degrees C, sky mostly clear.  After getting up to 7000 feet (3000 ft agl) as directed by ATC Calgary for this flight I found the winds were from the west at a constant 27 knots and the temperature after 30 minutes had climbed to 14 degrees C. My ground speeds were quite different if travelling east or westerly in direction.  Average ground speed was about 158 knots as best I can determine. An added bonus to todays flight early on in the flight was I was able to use the cabin heat for the first time, it was cozy warm inside the fiberglass foam insulated cabin.

After many delays with engine problems and the minor modifications that were required I was able to get up in the air once again to test the engine.  Finally I was  able to get a long flight time with everything functioning as it should. 

1.  Engine popping and back firing. As mentioned this was due to a spark plug fouling issue with the rebuilt engine making the plugs wet with oil in within about an hour of running the engine. This has been rectified by cleaning my own plugs and using a clean set before each flight test attempt. Having a backup set of plugs seems to have cleared up this problem until the engine rings get seated properly which will reduce the oil contamination in the cylinder head. 

2. Fuel pressure loss has been rectified as per the details in an earlier post on the subject along with the fixes required. When the engine gets up to 215 degree F on the ground I still have to use the boost pump to stop the pressure from dropping.  In the air during flight the boost pump is not required as the engine cooling and oil temperatures have dropped significantly. I plan on building a blast tube and shroud covering the mechanical fuel pump which a fellow builder has also had to do on his custom RV6 with a bigger engine.

3. Radio noise on my Dynon radio appears to be coming from the Skyview screen itself on frequency 123.4 and to a slightly lesser amount on 128.7 the air traffic frequency.  Raising the Squelch on the Dynon screen setup menu has cleared this up.

4. The Alternator charging has been fixed and was found to be a poorly manufactured 60 amp fuse link module where the connection to the fuse inside of the holder was faulty causing an intermittent connection.  The alternator came back from the test shop identifying it was in perfect running condition.

Oil Cooler Ram Air Intake

October 9 2024,

Due to the fact that I have been having issues with my Mechanical Fuel Pump on the engine getting to hot I wanted to see if I could reduce the engine oil temperature to some degree.  My engine baffling takes air from just in front of cylinder #2 into a horizontal round 3" diameter flange.  Then routes the air via scat hose to the oil cooler which is mounted on a stand off bracket from the firewall.  I believe that the air entering the cowling  is mostly going into the high pressure cavity above all cylinders.  As a result I believe the airflow into the scat hose from the horizontal opening is somewhat restricted.

I have fabricated a custom 90 degree Ram air intake scoop out of fiberglass to sit inside the 3 inch diameter flange at front of cylinder #2.  I carved a shape out of foam then glassed over it making sure the downward tube fits perfectly inside of the flange.  The opening of the intake across the bottom edge is then lock wired in two locations to the lower cowling intake lip using 24 gauge wire.

Results of this ram air to oil cooler has proven extremely beneficial as my oil temperature has gone from 203 F to 179 F a reduction of 24 degrees fahrenheit. 

End

Third test flight for 1.2 hour cut short due to Alternator charging intermittently.

 August 14 2024

After many times doing ground runs to prove problems have been solved I finally got up in the air flight testing.  A clean set of spark plugs were installed so as to alleviate any popping/backfiring or oil soaked plug conditions.  As noted from my first test flight balance was a bit nose heavy.  This time I had 25 pounds of lead in the baggage compartment and the same amount of fuel.   Using pitch trim I was now able to trim with almost full up nose trim.  I completed a 1.2 hour flight adjacent to the Springbank airport CYBW under radar control of Calgary VFR terminal control.  Fuel pressure is behaving much better now that the fuel lines were made as short as possible and then wrapped in a thermal blanket on top of the existing firesleeve.  The heat deflectors on the exhaust pipe locations is also helping keep heat away from the fuel lines.  Engine ran very good with all CHT and EGT and Oil temperatures staying in the green.  The Manifold pressure was stable at about 21.5 inches and I was running 2450 RPM at 6000 ft and 6500 feet altitude averaging about 156 knots groundspeed.

My flight was cut short once again as my alternator problem continues to give me grief.  It worked for a while after startup then quit for a while then came on again for 2 minutes and then quit for good 1/4 way through my flight.  I have good instrument and audio warnings of my voltage and my amps draw so continued the flight until the battery was showing 11.7 volts and then requested to land right away.  Landing this time was really good although in the flair I did a couple of little floating up and down before it settled firmly on the runway.  I focused on the centerline giving the rudder immediate corrections and had a very good roll out this time.  I am very happy with the modifications I made  to the tail spring and steering links.

In two days I am taking the alternator into a repair shop to find out why it is not giving constant output.  Now I will spend some time to try and figure why my radio is hissing loudly when not transmitting.  Something to work on while the alternator id away.  Ps the alternator came back from the shop testing in perfect working order.

Flight test cancelled Fuel pressure dropping excessively

 July 8 2024

Below a heat deflector is mounted above the port exhaust pipe.

I planned on doing a flight test but only got as far as the runup area when my fuel pressure was dropping down to .2 pounds from the normal 2.5 to 3.5 pounds.  The tower controllers allowed me to backtrack on the taxiway quite a ways as I made my way back to the hangar.  A couple of builder friends came by to give me some feedback on my fuel lines and the possibility of high heat causing vapour locking in the fuel lines.  It was recommended that I shorten the two fuel lines as short as possible then wrap them in a reflective heat blanket material on top of the fire sleeve.  They also recommended that I build 3 separate heat deflectors to clamp onto the exhaust pipes in three locations, two close to fuel lines and one to protect the starter and alternator.

Below a heat deflector is mounted above the starboard exhaust pipe.

Below a heat deflector is mounted above the front crossover exhaust pipe.

Modifications to Tail Wheel

August 3, 2023

Note: My tail wheel, spring, and attachment to the tail cone are of my own specification and are NOT as per the manual.  Design parameters are intended to make field repair or replacement easier if away from home base.  My drawings will be attached for clarity.

 As result of my taxi testing and test flight I have decided to change my tailwheel configuration.   There are a few things that I want to improve, 1- the tail sits to low causing poor forward visibility and I would like to raise it,  2- My original spring (single trailer leaf) was too short, 3- I didn't like the alignment of the tailwheel  steering link and chains to the rudder pivot, 4- I can  afford to add a bit of weight to the tail as my test flight indicated a bit nose heavy and would not allow hands off trim for level flight (single pilot and 3/4 fuel).  I will experiment with carrying some weight in the baggage compartment on next flight.

Overview:  A rectangular steel tube was made in a bent leg shape to attach to the bottom of tail, a flox bed was formed to mate the metal leg to the tail.  A trailer leaf spring (new) 1.75x5/16 thick is disassembled so one, two or three leafs can be used as the spring.  A Matco tailwheel  is bolted to the trailing end of the leaf spring.  The new tail spring leaf is 9.25 inches longer than the original I built.

Second test flight attempt cut short due to Engine popping and backfiring

 June 26 2023

I attempted a second test flight but on climb out I was getting a popping and occasional backfiring from the engine.  My flight with one other Vans RV9 was cut short and I only completed one large circuit before landing as soon as possible.  My landing this time was much better except I took my eye off the centerline to look at my airspeed then began to turn and ended up doing a ground loop on the runway surface, thankfully no damage was incurred.  I have learned I need to make centerline and the flare the only things I do until slowed right down.

The popping noise was eventually identified as two of my lower spark plugs had lead balls on each which shorted them out and were not firing.  The excess fuel then exploded at times in the exhaust pipe.  I have bought a second set of plugs so I can have a clean set ready to begin any further test flights.  Being a newly overhauled engine it is also letting oil past the rings and into the spark plugs.  This is a real pain because I need to fly the engine hard for awhile to get the rings to seat properly.  Working on these small problems require more ground running to confirm problems have been rectified.  Oh well such is flight testing.

Rebuilt magnetos installed

 May 30 2023

What a lousy spring we had here,  I did not get out to begin working on the plane this year until the middle of May.

I removed my magnetos and via a local shop had them sent out to be professionally rebuilt.  As I get into flight testing there are a number of concerns that I have with engine equipment.  The engine was rebuilt but I never had any documentation on the magnetos so decided it was best to have them looked at.  A very good thing as both needed seals, bearings, condensers and one needed a new internal nylon gear.  Very happy that I did this , I am trying to reduce some of the sources of potential engine performance problems before they happen.

Install of a backup Airspeed Indicator and Installation of One way Fuel tank Air vent valves at wing tips.

 March 22 2023

Addition of the backup airspeed indicator is  installed in the panel.  Reasoning for this is in case of the very rare possibility of the main screen going dark.  The glass panel screen has a backup battery which will keep the screen on for 1 hour should ship power be lost.  The backup airspeed indicator would give me airspeed should my main screen be lost during flight.  Landing approach speeds would be readable for a safe landing.

Addition of the One Way fuel tank air vent photo into the wing tips(left side is the same). Below is the right wing tip with the fiberglass  tip sitting on top of the wing.  The blue colored one way air vent is to allow the air to pass freely into the fuel tank but if fuel were to slosh out as far as the vent tube the one way valve will stop it going overboard.  The fuel tank interior has many ribs and anti slosh hinges installed inside the tank minimizing the sloshing of fuel.  The blue foam on the one way valve is now wrapped completely around the valve so there cannot be any metal contact to electrical connections in the wing tip.

Modification to Elevator - Adding additional counterbalance lead -

 January 11, 2023

My elevator was static balanced during construction along the hinge line.  Once installed I found them to be tail heavy when all drive tubes were connected.  I  left the lead weight space accesible (removable foam + rib) in case I needed to add additional lead, just behind the original forward lead installed.  A additional 2 pound of formed lead was added to each elevator tip and elevators are balanced up perfectly.  The lead was floxed into place and a 1/4" rib was installed (floxed) along the aft edge of the new lead.

Two layer of bid fiberglass is to be installed to cover the foam.

First Flight (Initial Test Results)

 August 31 2022

Some findings after my first flight.  

The airplane flew well and the engine performed very well.  There were some minor issues that presented and will have to be addressed prior to a subsequent flight.

1. After 2 hours of flight slowly decreasing oil pressure presented but cylinder temperatures remained in the green as did the oil temperature.

 Details:  The belly of the airplane was covered in oil which had escaped from the oil separator can overboard exit point.  Three and a half quarts of oil was lost in 2 hours of flight.  This appears to have been because I have the exit tube hanging below the lower engine cowling by 3 inches.  This resulted in  sucking oil out of the low drain back return tube from the engine case.  I have changed the oil exit tube to be only 3/4 inch below the belly skin which is still 2 inches above the lower engine cowling rear lip.    This might have compounded the negative pressure in the tube because it was hanging to low.  I have taken the oil separator completely out of the vent line circuit for now in case it was causing some sort of venturi effect within it's interior.  Now the vent line rises 2" as it exits the engine and drops down to the exit point 3/4 inch below the belly skin. 

2. Bad landing with low left wing caused bending of the pitot tube as it touched the pavement on exiting runway.

 Details:  The pitot tube was bent back into shape and it tested working fine.  A bit of liquid metal was used to cover up the scrape marks and was then filed smooth and surface painted.  The under side of the wing was damaged at this location and the pitot tube mounting nuts had to be lined up and re-bonded.  The skin was punched in a bit and was repaired and resurfaced smooth.

3. Rudder pedal vertical tubes need reinforcing with gussets.

Details:  During my landing and exiting of the runway into the grass my tail wheel went into full swivel turning me left.  I hammered on the right rudder pedal trying to arrest the left turn and partially broke the right rudder pedal.  This again was my mistake as my only steering option at this point would have been to use right brake to arrest the turning.  I have since seen a Service Letter that VANS aircraft had issued to it's owners to re-enforce the rudder pedal vertical tubes with a gusset.  This I have done, as I believe it is a good safety upgrade.

4. Aircraft is flying in a slightly nose heavy attitude with full nose up trim set.  During the test flight I had to hold very slight back pressure on the stick throughout the flight. 

Details:  I am going to add more weight to the elevator counterweight because I found it to be under balanced after installation.  I am also modifying my tailspring by making it longer and with a little more bend.  This will add a bit of weight to the tail and raise the tail for a bit better forward visibility.  If more weight should be needed I have designed it so I can can bolt a piece of lead directly onto the tailspring.

First Test Flight

 August 10 2022

Today was the big day for getting the first flight completed.  The object of the flight today is to break in the Lycoming engine as per the Lycoming recommendation for a totally rebuilt engine which was not run in at a shop after rebuild.  The run in of the engine is supposed to be 2 hours of flight at 2450 rpm and leaned properly for the conditions.  During the second hour the rpm's can be varied from 2350 through to 2550 for seating of the rings to the cylinder walls.  Of course this was only if the airframe would fly as expected.  Weather conditions were just perfect with clear skies and no wind.  At 10:00 in the morning I was airborne and completed racetrack pattern flights 1.0 miles (minimum) from the active runway at my local airport.  Temperature was 20 C and flight altitude was at 6500 feet.  

Here is some additional information for those that are building this "Vision" experimental aircraft.  My engine is very similar to the Lycoming O-320 but is a 1960's variant, Lycoming O-340 build by Lycoming specifically for the Navion twin aircraft. (They only manufactured this engine for about 8 years and was replaced by the O-360).   My engine is a totally rebuilt engine with zero time on it.   It has slightly higher compression and cylinder size than the 0-320 and is rated 140 HP.  The engine performed very well and was showing an indicated airspeed of 158 knots.  Compensating for temperature and altitude on this day the true airspeed was 180 knots.  This is right where I was hoping to see  my speeds.

One of my friends agreed to be my safety person to watch over me in case of issues where my wife might have to be notified, thankfully there was no need.  The flight lasted 2.2 hours and was recorded by my Mode S Dynon transponder to FlightAware.  During the complete time of my test flight I was under the surveillance of Calgary Class C airspace radar persons.  The flight went quite well but my landings were very bad, the first a 2 bounce go around the second a 2 bounce go around and the third a 1 bounce that  sent me 45 degrees off runway stopping in the grass.  After 6 years flying my Quickie Q2 I had some ingrained landing habits I needed to get rid of.  In short this was the tendency to keep pulling back on the stick in landing to pin the tailwheel of the Quickie.  This aircraft requires a flatter approach in ground effect to lessen any tendency to cause the airframe to balloon me back up after touchdown.  More details will be given in a upcoming post.

Final Inspection of Aircraft by MDRA rep.

 June 7 2022

Today I had the final inspection completed on my aircraft by a MDRA (Minister Deligate for Recreational Aircraft) in Alberta.  I was greeted by a extremely nice fellow Jeff Duchar who flew his own amateur built aircraft down from Red Deer Alberta.  Arriving at my hangar at 0930 in the morning just as planned.  My Inspection took just under 2 hours to complete and I was offered many accolades on my workmanship.  The inspection went very smoothly and resulted in four items to be attended to.  These were two bolts to be changed, 2 cotter pins to be secured better and two placards to add to the interior.  These items were corrected the next morning and my paperwork was on it's way to Transport Canada for review and then mailing out of my new Cof A for this aircraft.  I was so very pleased with the results of todays inspection and the kindness and common fellowship of a like minded inspector like Jeff Duchar.

Brake Test and Taxi Test

 May 9 2022

Below are a couple of videos of my first rolling movement under power.

First Engine Run

 May 4 2022

Still making progress towards getting my final inspection completed this spring.  I picked my registration letters that I wanted and made up the data plate and mounted it into the VISION.   The Canadian Registration for my airplane is now completed with Transport Canada and I have the C of R in hand with registration C-GVVI.  On May 4th I made the first run up of the totally re-built Lycoming engine and it started up right away.  This I could not be more pleased about as I had replaced the original carburetor and installed a Australian Throttle Body "Rotec" unit.  I only ran the engine for about 3 minutes to make sure oil pressure, fuel pressure and instruments were all functioning.  A few days later I ran the engine again this time to see it get warmed up and then did a very short taxi test to test the brakes and the steering.  It went perfect and total time on the engine was about 15 minutes.  Then a few days later I tied down the tail to a fence post, chalked the wheels and did the Lycoming recommended run up to full power.  Five minutes at 1000 then 10 minutes at 1400 to get the engine oil to  warm up to 120-140.  Then to 1800 RPM and cycle the propeller three times then full power for a maximum of 10 seconds followed by a cool down for about 3 minutes and another full power test for 10 seconds and then cool down and full power a last time.  Such a pleasure to see the engine get maximum RPM of 2700 on each of the full power tests.

March 2022

 April 8 2022

I have received the seat covers for the interior and am very pleased with the finish.  The seats are using memory foam with two layers on the seat bottom and one layer on the back.  The upholsterer offered to inset a Logo of the word "Vision" into the seat backs and the center console arm rest and I am very pleased with how that looks.  My registration letters were confirmed with Transport Canada and I then had the lettering made up and installed onto the fuselage.  I have submitted my documentation and photo of my Data plate to Transport Canada April 2 for my Certificate of Registration.   I have yet to complete my fuel flow test and then will run the engine for  the first time in the coming couple of weeks.  

February 2022

 February 27/22

Installed the Fire extinguisher and First Aid kit and screwed the belly panel back into place.  I spent a day  draining and redoing six brake line fittings which had been weeping very slightly over a month.  At first I was going to just leave it but it kept nagging at me.  I didn't want any type of leaks, especially leaks in hard to reach locations, so was well worth the work of draining and fixing.  I installed the Control stick and wired in the PTT button.   Placed a hose clamps on the static vents, pitot hose line and the fuel air vent lines.  Tested the pitot and static lines for no leaks.  Using the computer and Avery label (sticky back and clear) sheets I made up all the required Placards required for the interior and exterior of the aircraft.  I then used a Label maker to make up all of the placards for switches and fuses on the panel.