Conducted 3/22/2013 –
John’s flight report to the Cozy list is below:
“I know some people are not a fan of daylight savings time, but I for one welcome the extra after work daylight to allow for evening flight testing again. I got my first chance to take advantage of it this past Friday. I had 3 flights to conduct at max gross weight yet to complete my stall / stability test series (one each at forward, mid, and aft CG). My goal was to complete the series over the weekend if the weather would hold out long enough.
Christine took the early train home on Friday, and we wasted no time getting out to the airport to conduct the mid CG, MGW test. It took a little time to load and secure the 420lbs of sand bags, and fill the tanks, but I was able to get airborne just before 6pm. Just enough time to get through the flight test card before sunset. Despite all the added weight the take off run seemed about the same. Admittedly I was paying more attention to the airspeed indicator than I was to the distance markers, so I couldn’t say for sure.
The flight went well, and I descended back down to the airport just before sunset. This being my first landing at MGW, I wanted to make sure I set it down gently, but with a shallow enough angle to make sure the prop didn’t strike if it wasn’t a greaser. I kept my speed up to 85Kts and it settled on nicely. I did notice rollout to be a little longer, but nothing terrible. I still need to come up with a way to increase the pedal ratio to the master cylinders.
I quickly put the plane away and we all went home to turn in early. The weather was supposed to hold at least into the early morning, I wanted to be sure to be back out in time to get at least one more test in on Saturday.”