Flight #23                                       

Conducted 3/23/2013 -

John's flight report to the Cozy list is below:

"So the last test to conduct was at the aft CG and MGW. Aft CG testing is still scary to me, even though the previous two aft cg tests were fine. I worry about inadvertently loading the plane too far aft. Fortunately, my local EAA chapter has a set of scales that have been camping in my hangar for the past several months. I have weighed the plane and moved weights around the various stations to confirm the arms, but for each of the aft cg tests I’ve done, I’ve put it on the scales and ballasted it there to confirm my numbers. My rear seat stations were originally calculated using a small child I happen to have laying around, but now with 360lbs of sand in the seat bottom areas alone it was a little off. It came in at 102.8. That’s enough to make me very glad I checked it. While one could hope there is a full inch of safety margin in that 102.0 design limit. I don’t want to bet my life on a hope.

We had eaten lunch while working on the weight/balance, and now both me and the plane were refueled and ready for the next flight. I poked my head outside and still not a cloud to be found. We were nearing 2:30pm and had until 5 to get home and ready for our yearly EAA Chapter Banquet, so it looked like the stars were going to all be aligned.

I once again barreled down the runway, but this time the nose came up smartly as I passed 65kts. I made sure it didn’t climb above the horizon, gave the bird a couple seconds to put some clearance under the prop, than pointed her skyward at 100Kts. My current VSI is part of my TruTrak ADI, it’s only labeled up to 1000fpm, but the mechanical stop seems to be about 1500fpm. Even at MGW she pegged the VSI. There was no traffic around so I held it at 100Kts for a while to see how long it would climb like this. I normally like a better forward view, so as the altimeter passed 6000’ a few minutes later I lowered the nose a little and watched the VSI drop to a paltry 1000fpm. Man, Cozy’s sure like cold air.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. My sandbag passengers seemed perfectly content. And once testing was done, I took a couple minutes to go sightseeing around my house. The 20 minute drive by car is transformed into a 5 minute procedure turn in the Cozy. As I approached the airport I remembered how scared I was to conduct the first stall test. I still say I was rightfully scared. Obviously, if everything is built and works as intended, it’s a complete non-event. But it was hard for me to get past that point of questioning “did I build it right?”. At least now I know it’s close enough to trust anyway.

All in all a great weekend. Another 4.5 hours in the books, and the stall/stability series complete. I’ve got 12 hours to go, with climb and flutter testing to do yet. I expect it will take almost the full 12 hours to complete it. I will likely have an hour, maybe two at most, to just play around/fly off at the end. Fortunately the weather is improving here in MN for the moment."