Flying the RV-7

During the course of the summer, I bought a pair of the Bose X headsets at OSH through a dealer for the usual price. I tried both the Bose and the Zulus at the kiosks, and while both had great sound quality, I gave Bose the edge for comfort as the Lightspeed headsets had a higher clamping pressure. The intended purpose was to use these for my passengers or on solo cross-countries.

By chance, I had a chance to do a real-world side-by-side comparison of three headsets yesterday in my own RV. I had promised Dave "Thermos" Setser a ride in my RV when he was out here in Seattle for business. Well, he finally had a trip out here and the weather was playing nicely. The plan was to depart Auburn after work and head down to Chehalis for some cheap(er) fuel. I offered to let Dave use my Bose X headsets, but he wanted to try his new ones he brought along, to my surprise he had a set of Zulu's. Well that's cool. Good opportunity for a test.

I've been using an HGU-55 with hardshell earcups, $189 Headsets Inc. ANR conversions with Oregon Aero ear seals and mic muff. The combination has worked absolutely great with no problems. It's a fitted helmet, so it's very comfortable with no pressure points, and does have a visor. Overall, I really like the helmet both from a comfort and functional perspective. Upsides: it's comfortable, gives nice passive noise cancellation, and provides a level of eye protection and safety for the noggin. Downside: if it's hot outside, it will make your head sweat a little and I need to sit down in the seat about an inch more than with headsets to give me some head room.

I tried the Bose on a separate flight and found that although the sound quality was good, the ear cups didn't do a lot for passive attenuation in that really loud environment. I don't have firewall sound deadening or side panels so it's a little loud. I noticed I needed to turn up the intercom volume to get a good volume on the headsets. Without ANR, it's really hard to hear anything and they basically do nothing for you on the passive side. Upside: They are really comfortable with good sound quality. Downside: the lack of good passive deadening lets enough sound through that the headsets are disappointing.

While returning from the gas stop, I got to try the Zulu's and Dave tried the Bose at the same time. We had no trouble hearing each other or the radio. The Zulu's also had great sound quality, but there was a noticeable reduction in the passive noise levels. I can't quantify this but it was noticeable. The only issue was a slightly higher clamping pressure on my head. It's not anywhere near a DC headset (and your noggin will vary), but still comfortable. Upside: Great sound quality, comfortable, and higher passive attenuation. Downside was a slightly higher head clamp.

So, I intend to swap out the Bose for the Zulu, primarily for passenger use or when I'm flying solo and I might even pick up a second set sometime in the future. My trusty brain bucket does a great job, but for something lighter, the Lightspeed is a really nice set. Dave might pipe in here, but he said his decision to buy the Zulus was certainly vindicated.

	6 Dec 2008	The weather gave us a little break on Saturday so we went flying. The plan was to meet John Adams and Dave Parsons over at Bremerton for breakfast and the proverbial $100 sausage and eggs. Down south, we had lots of sun, but further north, a high overcast until the rain came later in the day. I had promised Brandon Seltz, one of our MS guys a ride. He's on the downward side of getting his PPL, but had a big interest in the RV world. Our plan was to head south to Chehalis for some cheap(er) gas, then head north to meet John and Dave. As luck would have it, Brandon and I made it to the Bremerton pattern right behind John. Since Brandon is a pretty decent photographer, we formed up on John after Breakfast for some photos. You can see Brandon's pics from the flight in his Flicker account here.
	15 Nov 2008	It was a fairly decent weekend here in Seattle so I got to fly a bit on Saturday as well as Sunday. On Saturday I headed up to Skagit for some cheap gas and Sunday I had promised a ride to one of my fellow Microsoft kindred , Michael Z, who's in the process of finishing an RV-7 tail (and also has one of the cooler jobs at MS if you're into aviation). I flew into Harvey Field (S43), which is 36' x 2200, so it takes some attention and really makes you stick to the center line. It's also wavy and really needs a resurfacing so I bounced a bit down the runway. Speed control is really a good thing at these short and narrow strips. We went out and had a good time, but on return, I suffered from RV-induced lookie-loo delays. A couple of the local CFI's wanted to take a good look and had a ton of questions. Hey, I'm new to this game but it's fun stuff! So far I've put about 60 hours on the RV since early June and I'm sure glad that fuel prices are starting to finally come down!
	25 Oct 2008	We got lucky and had one more nice weekend with some warmer temps and decent skies. First thing today was to remove the pants and gear fairings. I wanted to fair in the fairings to the gear leg fairing, so last week I had wrapped some wet glass around the gear leg fairing, then installed the pants and upper intersections. Today, I pulled these off and it seemed to have worked. Next task to get these neatened up.
		Here' s the right upper intersection fairing. I think it turned out OK for what I'm trying to do. I really didn't like the gaps in the off-the-shelf fairings.
		After removing the fairings, I did a little maintenance, which included reseating the GPS and tightening up a brake b-nut on the right gear. I headed out to clear the SEA Class B, but we did have a broken deck around 3500'. It was easy to climb up to 8500 remaining clear of the clouds to a nice view on top. Wind was about 46 kts out of the north, but really smooth. At right is the view looking south from the Stevens Pass area.
		Doing a 4-way speed test without fairings at 8500' (29.92", MP: 21.4/ 2510 RPM) yielded the following. GS Heading TAS KTS 127 351 159 143 261 197 171 159 176 061 157 This produces an average of 167.9 KTS TAS (192.1 MPH) but wind at 40/ 309 deg. I want to run this at a lower altitude to see if there's that much difference between the calculated GPS speeds and the TAS.
		Just another view out the window of the western Cascades. Above the clouds, it was just a really nice day. To top it off, I made a stop-n-taxi-back at Monroe, which is now the shortest and skinniest field I've been into so far (2087 x 34'). On top of being short and narrow, landing on 25 comes in over the fair grounds and some interesting obsticles.
	18 Oct 2008	Dave Parsons, John Adams and I had planned on meeting for Saturday AM breakfast if the weather was decent. We started out heading for Bremerton, but by the time we got there, the morning low scud/ fog hadn't cleared yet so we turned north and headed for Jefferson County Airport at Port Angeles. Picture at left is north part of Hood Canal with some of the left-over clouds to the west. For the most part, JeffCo was nice and sunny and not too cool. A good breakfast was had by all!
		Here's John Adam's ride at JeffCo, getting ready to depart after breakfast. With the exception of a carb, vs. my fuel injection, we have the same set-up for power. Heading back towards the east on the return, we did some power comparisons and for the most part, we're about even at a given manifold pressure/ RPM. We didn't try a full speed run to see if there's some top end differences, but that's on the agenda. Dave Parsons' RV-7A was a little slower, but he was carrying a passenger and had just filled the tanks, so he was flying a bit heavier. We're going to have to do this again! Way too much fun.
	12 Oct 2008	The day finally came when I was able to get the wheel pants, gear leg fairings and intersection fairings in place. The upper intersection fairings need more work, then again, so do the wheel pants. Some fill here and there, and a bunch of sanding, and we'll be OK. Otherwise they seem to fit well.
		Another view just prior to flight.
		While I was out today, I did take a couple photos as the sun was out over the Cascades. Earlier last week, we had some light snow in the mountains which is starting to show up again for the winter.
		So here's where I ended up with the fairings in place. 2000', 24.5 MP, 2400: 178 MPH 2000', 25.1 MP, 2510: 184 MPH/ 163 Kts TAS 2000', 27.7 MP, 2700: 207/ 183 Kts TAS (Wide Open = 210 TAS MPH) 4500', 24.3 MP, 2410: 180 MPH/ 166 Kts TAS 6500', 23.6 MP, 2680: 184 MPH/ 177 Kts TAS 6200', 24.0 MP, 2400: 176 MPH/ 168 Kts TAS (Previously 156/153) 6360', 22.0 MP, 2200: 166 MPH/ 159 Kts TAS
		I also did a 3-leg speed calibration run with the GPS. Based on Kevin Horton's spreadsheets, I might be indicating 3-4 kts slow. The fix for that may be the old dome head rivet glued to the static port to get the opening out of the barrier airflow. Overall, It appears I picked up the 20 MPH top speed! That's pretty cool. even if I pull it back to 2200 squared at 6500', I can still move along at 182 MPH TAS.
	6 Oct 2008	I've been working the wheel pants and there's a lot of work here. Even though I ended up with Fairings Etc upper and lower intersection fairings, these are taking a lot of work. After cutting the intersection fairings, I was trying to figure out how to make the mating edge even. Sanding wasn't working, so I figured this one out. Just put some mold release on two sides of some .024 AL, then insert in the gaps. Fill the sides with flox-laden epoxy and you're done. Sand to finish.
		After disassembly, here's what this looks like. Pretty cool. The down side is that I'm going to have to fir the intersection fairings to the gear leg fairing a bit better. They are not looking so good at this time. Just add more time and effort.
	28 Sept 2008	The last of the decent Seattle weather may have run its course this weekend. We have one more nice day then its rain until May. I've been trying to get the gear fairings and wheel pants generally done prior to it getting cooler and before painting. I spent most of Saturday on the right wheel pant, but it only took an hour for the right. Lot's of fiberglass to do, but I'm making progress.
		I bought pre-made upper and lower intersection fairings and they generally fit decent, but they do need some work. I noticed that the forward lower fairings don't quite make it all the way back to the split line so I need to figure this out.
		After toiling away on the wheel pants, Alex and I headed out to Bremerton for a nice lunch. For only having 3 rides, he's enjoying this.
	22 Sept 2008	During the course of the summer, I bought a pair of the Bose X headsets at OSH through a dealer for the usual price. I tried both the Bose and the Zulus at the kiosks, and while both had great sound quality, I gave Bose the edge for comfort as the Lightspeed headsets had a higher clamping pressure. The intended purpose was to use these for my passengers or on solo cross-countries. By chance, I had a chance to do a real-world side-by-side comparison of three headsets yesterday in my own RV. I had promised Dave "Thermos" Setser a ride in my RV when he was out here in Seattle for business. Well, he finally had a trip out here and the weather was playing nicely. The plan was to depart Auburn after work and head down to Chehalis for some cheap(er) fuel. I offered to let Dave use my Bose X headsets, but he wanted to try his new ones he brought along, to my surprise he had a set of Zulu's. Well that's cool. Good opportunity for a test. I've been using an HGU-55 with hardshell earcups, $189 Headsets Inc. ANR conversions with Oregon Aero ear seals and mic muff. The combination has worked absolutely great with no problems. It's a fitted helmet, so it's very comfortable with no pressure points, and does have a visor. Overall, I really like the helmet both from a comfort and functional perspective. Upsides: it's comfortable, gives nice passive noise cancellation, and provides a level of eye protection and safety for the noggin. Downside: if it's hot outside, it will make your head sweat a little and I need to sit down in the seat about an inch more than with headsets to give me some head room. I tried the Bose on a separate flight and found that although the sound quality was good, the ear cups didn't do a lot for passive attenuation in that really loud environment. I don't have firewall sound deadening or side panels so it's a little loud. I noticed I needed to turn up the intercom volume to get a good volume on the headsets. Without ANR, it's really hard to hear anything and they basically do nothing for you on the passive side. Upside: They are really comfortable with good sound quality. Downside: the lack of good passive deadening lets enough sound through that the headsets are disappointing. While returning from the gas stop, I got to try the Zulu's and Dave tried the Bose at the same time. We had no trouble hearing each other or the radio. The Zulu's also had great sound quality, but there was a noticeable reduction in the passive noise levels. I can't quantify this but it was noticeable. The only issue was a slightly higher clamping pressure on my head. It's not anywhere near a DC headset (and your noggin will vary), but still comfortable. Upside: Great sound quality, comfortable, and higher passive attenuation. Downside was a slightly higher head clamp. So, I intend to swap out the Bose for the Zulu, primarily for passenger use or when I'm flying solo and I might even pick up a second set sometime in the future. My trusty brain bucket does a great job, but for something lighter, the Lightspeed is a really nice set. Dave might pipe in here, but he said his decision to buy the Zulus was certainly vindicated.
		On the return from Chahalis, I had a chance to take a quick shot of the panel. I still have a setting that's not right on the EIS which triggers the master caution (that's why it's illuminated). I also need to pay some attention to the stand-by instruments. Note that they are off from what's being reported on the EFIS. I do know that the EFIS has been checked with the transponder check, and the GPS altitude corresponds with the EFIS so I have some confidence in the that reading. It's the cheap UMA instruments that are potentially an issue. This was the latest I'd flown into the evening and everything looked good.
	20 Sept 2008	I had ordered a canopy cover and inlet plugs from Bruce's Custom Covers. The cover came in a while ago, but I recently received the plugs. Bruce said that the plugs vary from plane to plane so I had to provide some inlet dimensions. The results are really nice and fit great. I haven't fitted the canopy cover yet, but it looks great too.
		I've been waiting for summer to end here in Seattle and it decided to wrap up this week it seems. The last three days were just crud. Low scud and rain all day today. The upside is that I've needed a nasty day to start the gear fairings. Why work on the fiberglass when I can go flying! I leveled the fuselage and took the measurements to run the string. Here's the left gear.
		I did order the Bob's Fairings upper and lower intersection fairings. Out of the box the uppers appear to fit decent. They need a bit of work.
		And the right side. This one fits better then the left. Not too bad.
		And another bad shot of the left gear.
		We had out EAA Chapter BBQ up at Paine field this weekend. The weather wasn't too good to start with but by afternoon, it cleared up nicely with some sun and warm temps. A couple of the guys brought kids and they appeared to have a good time. From what I can see, we're looking at the future of the aviation in the US.