Sunday, December 1, 2013

Second Flight, First Problem

Before I start on the second flight, let me tell you that there won't be a video from my first flight. The GoPro had worked fine but when I tried to read out the video, my Mac froze up and the mounted NTFS file system of the SD card got damaged upon the reboot. It was beyond repair and so I had to format the card. Fortunately, I was able to take a video (with much better landings) on my second flight which will get posted here when I had time to put it all together.

On the second flight I did a touch&go before leaving the pattern for a long climb out to 6000 feet. At around 4500 feet I noticed that the engine seemed to slightly lose thrust. Because of the still erratic RPM gauge I could not tell if this was indeed true. Scanning the engine monitor showed that I had a fuel pressure of just 0.7 psi which would explain why the Rotax did not develop its full power. I decided to throttle back after verifying that I had the electric fuel pump working. As soon as I throttled back a bit the pressure started rising again. A sure sign of a clogged fuel system.
I did some speed tests up to 112 knots which showed that I do not need a rudder trim tab as she was flying straight as an arrow when I took my feet off the pedals.
After another 30 minutes of flying time I did another touch&go and a full stop landing, heading back to the hangar. I will remove the cowls and open the gascolator bowl to clean out whatever might be in there that restricts the fuel flow. I might have to also to the flow test from the tank , through the pump to the gascolator to see if that part is clean. I just hope I don't have to pull the carb bowls as this means some additional parts removal to just get to them.

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