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Flying this weekend (Navy planes, smoke in the cockpit, and more)

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gtae07

Well-Known Member
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Dec 13, 2012
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2,637
Location
Savannah, Georgia
So for once the airport wasn't crawling with Feds and the weather held out for us... I got to do some flying!

Friday we went for a fuel run and short formation flight. After takeoff we (4-ship) made a pass down the runway and Dad had the smoke system on. Apparently, it's getting drawn in from somewhere in the tail and into the cockpit, because things got really smoky in there. It doesn't seem to bother him for some reason; I found it real annoying and popped every air vent I could reach to try and flush it out. If I could get my grubby little hands on this airplane for more than an hour at at time I'd fix that problem...

Anyway, we got to Lagrange and I noticed after we landed that there was a hangar with an old Navy piston airplane in it. From the taxiway I thought it was an S-2, but it turns out to have been a C-1 Trader. Much to our delight, the maintenance crew working on it said it was open and let us go take a peek inside. I got a chuckle out of finding old standard Grumman parts on that airplane that I recognized from stuff at work; Dad's first thought from the cockpit was "Jeez, I can't imagine bringing this thing on the ship!" (he flew E-2s). Got to sit in the cockpit too :grin:

Trader pilot.jpg

On the flight back I got a few minutes of formation practice, though it was interrupted when we felt a strong, low-frequency vibration in the airplane. We didn't figure it was flutter since we were only doing 130kt or so at the time; asked #3 to look us over and he immediately noticed that the right gear leg was shaking and the wheel was turning. A quick brake application fixed that problem. It was kind of weird since we've never seen that happen before and I don't know what would have made it start doing that 10 minutes after takeoff.

On Sunday I got a chance to fly a friend's RV-7; I was particularly interested in flying this specific airplane because it is equipped very similarly to what I am planning for mine--avionics, interior, etc. (though I'll be using electronic injection and a different electrical setup). He even let me sit left seat despite not having landed anything since Labor Day. I was kind of nervous; it was my first time flying someone else's personal airplane and trying to land it.

Anyway, my overall impressions are that the -7 feels just a tiny bit stiffer on the controls. The feel is very similar in pitch and roll, but the big rudder is much more effective. I noticed I was using it a lot less on landing rollout than is typical in Dad's -6. This airplane was also a lot quieter and smoother inside, as it has a full interior package. Leaning was much less of a chore because he actually has the EMS portion of his Skyview set up right to indicate it properly.
Stalls were more or less identical in feel to the -6. That is, things get quieter (slow speed = less wind noise), the nose gets up in the air, and the stick gets a little less effective; very mild buffeting and oilcanning about 1-2kt above the stall. IMHO, this qualifies as "very subtle". The break is clean, but just a bit of forward stick and the recovery is instantaneous with very little altitude loss.

This airplane was equipped with the built-in AOA and the audio feedback; I found it very easy to fly around within a couple knots of 1g stall with the audio tones telling me how close I was. They could stand to be a bit louder, though maybe that's my ears and not the electronics. Visibility over the nose during ground operations seems better than in the -6, too. I don't know how much of that is the seats, how much is intrinsic to the -7, and how much was the different tailwheel fork he used.

Landing wasn't really different, other than it floats longer and the rudder is a little more effective. But I was happy with my landings, and so was he. I'm sure with a couple day's practice I'd be using even less runway than I did. (edit: I should note this was all wheel landings; I find them far easier than 3-point)

The interior was so much more comfortable than Dad's bare-bones basic interior that there's almost no comparison. It's like sitting in a car. I am in full agreement with another friend that "it's stupid money... but it's worth it". I'll pay the money and take the weight hit; my butt and my wife will appreciate it.
Two things I didn't expect to like, but did: flap switch on the stick (with positioning system) and the stick grip itself. Flying a couple of touch-and-goes made me appreciate having the flap switch right there at my thumb; I never had to take my hands off the throttle and stick in the pattern--unlike in Dad's airplane with the manual flap bar. I also liked the fancy fighter-pilot grip, too (one of the $$ infinity ones). It fits my hand much better than I expected, and though I'd choose different functions for some of the switches I can really see how useful it would be for formation work.
 
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