I am well into my 2009 condition inspection and happy to report that there have been no surprises.  While I have the wheels off, I'm taking the opportunity to change the brake mounting to the LaRue/Coughlin setup. My brakes have worked ok up to this point with the floating caliper approach - ok means that they did not grab unexpectedly. However; they had little "holding" power and their effectiveness after landing was questionable.  As part of this update, I have made my own brake pads out of a softer material so we'll see how that works out.

January 1, 2009 was a gorgeous, clear, blue sky, warm day so I just had to get the year started off right.  I took off and headed northwest.  No particular destination in mind, just clicking pictures, enjoying the scenary, and loving flight!  Spent about 1.5 hours in the air and took some nice photos.  They are posted here.  What a great start to the new year!!

I have been in the prop making business for the last couple of weeks. I am building a Paul Lipps designed test propellor. While not "hard" work, it certainly is time consuming. I'm not very well equipped for wood work and that hasn't helped. Hopefully I'll have a finished product in the a month or so.  Photos here.

As part of pre-flight I always put one hand on the top and one on the bottom and try to move the elevator up and down at the mid-span and outer pivots.  This morning the right side mid-span pivot felt very wrong, the left side outer pivot felt kinda wrong.  So, I pulled the elevators off.  Much to my surprise the right side mid-span pivot pin was BROKEN.  The left side outer pivot was loose.  The left side outer pivot was an easy fix, tighten up the nut.  The mid-span was a bit harder but still managed to get-er-done.  While I was at it I took the opportunity to machine a set of elevator to fuselage spacers that provide the correct spacing.  My last set allowed more side-to-side movement than I cared for - not any more!

Flew to Casa Grande, AZ for the 2008 Copperstate Fly-in this past weekend.  Had a great flight over and back and super time there.  Copperstate is a very nice fly-in.  At the awards dinner, I was quite surprised to be announced as the winner of the Alernative Power award and Furthest Distance Alternative Power.  I got to bring home two very nice plaques!!!

This past weekend I made a long round trip to Beatrice, NE for the 2008 Quickie/Q2/Dragonfly Tandem Wing Fly-in.  The plane and engine performed beautifully for the entire 12.3 hour, 1500 mile trip.

Some details: Route going was E98 (Mid Valley) - LVS (Los Vegas, NM) - LHX (La Junta, CO - fuel) - GGF (Grant, NE - visit friends) - IML (Imperial, NE - visit friends) - MCK (McCook, NE - fuel) - BIE (Beatrice, NE). Return was BIE - HQG (Hogaton, KS - fuel) - E98.  I didn't get much help from tailwinds during the entire trip - a little on the out leg, small headwind on the return leg.  The longest legs were about 2.5 hours which I've found to be my personal maximum range (small bladder capacity...).  I may try one of those "Bladder Stretchers" (as seen on TV) prior to the next trip. ;-) The out trip and flying whilst there was 7 hours and 33 gals (which was 4.7 gph, 25 mpg) and 8 takeoffs/landings which included giving a couple of rides and a little "demonstration" flying.   Return trip was total fuel used was...

This past weekend I made a trip to Kanab, UT to join the EZ group at one of their RACE events.  It was a 365 sm trip each way over some very rough but very beautiful New Mexico and Arizona country.  The engine and plane ran perfectly. I flew non-stop both directions and ran the engine very lean and full throttle at between 10,500' and 12,500' msl.  For the most part, I saw 3900-4050 cruise rpm and 135-140mph IAS.  Ground speed was 150-172 mph both directions.  The engine consumed 4.4gph which equates to about 30mpg. The weather there was quite bad so no racing was done but it sure was a good time visiting and hangar flying.

I've been wrestling with some very slight cooling issues this summer.  In hindsight, it is kinda humourous....  My high rpm coolant temperature has been running close to 220F all summer.  This was a bit of a surprise as temps were fine last summer. This hasn't slowed me down at all as it is an acceptable temp. The other odd thing is that I have been getting LOTS of hot air in the cockpit (radiator in the tailcone).  I had mostly resolved that my sealing the cockpit from the tailcone and adding some additional tailcone vents.  Yesterday, I had my head stuck under the cooling air outlet while contemplating the installation of a door and noticed that the one bolt that holds the aft, inner air duct tight against the inside fuselage skin was missing.  Argh!  Couldn't be that easy could it??  Out of curiosity, I checked the forward duct and the SAME PROBLEM - missing the one bolt again... The good news, of course, is that the ducts are really jammed into place so they cannot go anywhere. However; they were obviously...

I lost an EFI fuel pump and I didn't even know it!!!  It is SSSOOOO nice to have built-in redundancy.  I flew to breakfast and, while starting the plane for the return, noted that I had no pressure from my auxilary high-pressure pump.  No biggie, I flew back home without it.  On further inspection, the pump appears to be mostly seized up.  When I hit it with something (a wrench), it will spin for a moment but then stops.  Both of my pumps are junkyard units so I don't have any bad feelings about it dying.  I quickly found a "new" junkyard replacement and headed back to the sky!!

Seems like that's about all I do anymore.  I LOVE IT!!!  I am becoming very comfortable and confident with the Subaru.  I keep checking oil and coolant levels, nuts and bolts for security, and everything else I can think of and there are simply no problems.  It doesn't use a drop of oil or coolant.  The only issue that I have is alot of heat in the cockpit due to the radiator being in the tailcone.  I have some ideas to solve that problem but am doing so much flying that I hate to take the time to take the tail off.