25 Laps

Today was the long awaited first break-in flight of the newly overhauled O-470. We had attempted to get a flight in yesterday, but during the run-up there was an issue with the prop control so we had to taxi back and call it a day. With the prop control fixed we taxied out and made a request to the tower to circle over the airport at 1500'. The tower approved the request, and we climbed to 1500' and entered the pattern. The break-in instructions say to fly at 75% power for one hour, so once at altitude, the power was set at 23"/2450 and we went around an around and around, overall 25 laps.

At the end of the first hour, we landed and returned to the shop for another inspection to make sure that things were ok with the engine and to verify that there were no leaks. After getting the ok, we departed again for another hour in the air and after the hour stopped at KBVS to get something to eat. After lunch, repeated the same thing and put another hour on the engine before returning to KRNT.

Next up will be an oil change/inspection and then we'll be good to go for another 12 hours until the next oil change.

Back in the Air Soon

The freshly overhauled engine was delivered last week and the mechanics started the installation. We're hoping to make the first break-in flight by the end of the week. We opted for factory TCM cylinders this time around since we had three ECI cylinders fail within a 200 hour interval. Two had the cross-hatching wear down resulting in loss of compression and another experienced a broken valve guide. At the time, we also went ahead and replaced the remaining good four cylinders (when the first two failed), so who knows if they would have eventually succumbed to failure. (Previous post on the engine).

The engine shop did their best to help us with some of the costs, but in the end it was ECI that didn't stand behind their product and in my opinion manufactured three faulty cylinders. That's a 50% defect rate.

So moving forward with the cylinder problems behind us, we should have another 1500 hours or so of smooth and relatively maintenance free flying.

iPad in the Cockpit

I bought an iPad back in October have been evaluating various flying apps and electronic charts. So far, I like ForeFlight and JeppTC. Since I already subscribe to Jepp View the chart downloads are free and Foreflight costs $75/year for its download service. I've taken the iPad along in the cockpit for the last few flights and tried using it for instrument approaches in the Frasca. So far the device is useful and provides added benefit as a pilot, but I still haven't found a descent way to mount or keep the tablet accessible in the cockpit. I've see some yoke and dash mounts and a few iPad knee boards, but so far the knee board from http://mygoflight.com/ looks promising. I'm currently using a Speck case which works as a lapboard when opened up. Also, with IOS 4.3, the switch on the side of the iPad can now be configured to lock the screen. A few times with IOS 4.2, if I moved my leg, the Jepp charts would rotate and not be easily readable.

Here's the Foreflight and Jepp displays: