Successful First Flight

The morning was still breezy so I decided to stay at home and watch the wind forecasts. It said it should die down at noon (how unusual).

We went out there to arrive in breezy conditions at 11:30am but I went on to ready the plane for take-off.

Here I am installing the GoPro3 camera which would not yet let me read out the First Flight video data it had taken. I hope I can persuade it with some more effort ...

I fueled up the plane with around 15 gallons and opened the doors to get her out.

Then I did a thorough foreflight check.

And here we go, idling and checking the instruments.

Someone here is really focused (and somewhat worried, just slightly).

A last time contemplating what to do if something bad happens, and off we went towards runway 12.

And after another engine run-up (with erratic RPM readings above 5000 rpm), we took off.

I took 25 minutes of circling at 6000 feet MSL to get comfortable, trying stalls and slow flight and could find nothing wrong with the plane. The erratic RPM reading persist above 5000 rpm and it might be a bad connection to the sensor. It is rock solid below 5000, so it definitely working alright. The right wing is ever so slightly heavy and she needs quite some rudder to fly straight. Nothing unexpected though and a nice clean stall at 32 knots with the warning sound coming on at 40 knots. When she stalls the nose drops and that is it. The controls start feeling soft and wobbly at 42 and it worsens with slower speed. One thing I noticed was a high fuel flow warning with the gauge showing 9.9 gallons per hour. I checked the tank and there was no way I was burning fuel at this rate. I switched the electric fuel pump off and the flow immediately went down to 3.8 gals/hr. I am not sure what to make of this but it is an easy fix and I did not lose any fuel.
After those tests and me feeling completely comfortable, I went for a trial approach.

The approach turned out to be a tad high but was definitely land-able so I went for it (easy with a 7000 ft runway). It is amazing though how long the -12 floats when she gets into the ground effect.
And back I went towards the hangar.

Look on the far right if you lost me among all the other planes.

You have to zoom in to see the legendary RV grin or you look at this one after I came to a stop and out of the hot cockpit.

I put the plane away and read out the flight data from the Skyview for later analysis. I've made the logbook entries and went home to celebrate.

To be continued ...