Author: The Flying Dutchman

I am a man who loves Christ, loves my wife, loves my family, loves my church, and loves aviation. In that order.

The Dutchman Flies Again

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Six Chuter P3Leave a comment

Well if last Saturday was great, this past Saturday was greater!  I returned to Lincoln airport and their powered parachute field hoping to fly my P3.  It’s a long drive and I really didn’t want to drive all that way again but it was the only place in the Central Valley that wasn’t experiencing high winds.  And really there is quite a community of powered parachute enthusiasts there so it’s a fun place to fly.

I showed up a couple of hours before sunset.  There was one other person there waiting to fly as well.  We chatted and talked about, surprise, flying.  A married couple showed up, he flies a PPC, she flies a PPG.  We all busied ourselves with getting our respective machines ready.  Wings laid out.  Last minute wind direction checks.  I have to admit I was a little nervous as I prepared myself to fly the P3.  It had been 3 months since I had flown as pilot and one week since I had flown a two seat PPC with Ken.  I didn’t do very well flying his machine, or should I say landing it.

Finally I ran out of excuses not to fly so I climbed aboard my machine and gave it the gas.  Now, on my PPC when accelerating you had to guide the canopy up, and steer both the canopy and the machine on the ground until you were flying.  With the PPC the canopy came up and locked itself in overhead as if supported by poles.  It was just rock solid.  I went ahead and pushed the throttle all the way forward and gave my rudders a little kick and up it went.

Once up in the air it flew very much like my PPG did but felt more stable.  Climb rate was slightly less and turns were not as fast when only using the rudder bars.  I could increase the turn by grabbing the steering rope and pulling it in.  I spent about 20 minutes just flying around and making approaches, coming in lower and lower before going around again.  I just wanted to see how fast it reacted to the throttle.   When landing many PPC pilots give a burst of throttle just prior to touchdown, once I was satisfied I knew how much throttle to apply I set up for my landing.

The landing was nothing to write home about.  I was late on the throttle and bounced but it wasn’t bad.  I killed the engine and rolled to a stop while kicking the rudder bars.   Kicking the rudder bars causes the canopy to collapse behind the PPC.  Much better than having it come down on top of you.  All in all a successful flight and I look forward to many more.

P3 Lite PPC Flies

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Six Chuter P3Leave a comment

Had a great Saturday this past weekend!  I drove up to Lincoln, CA to meet up with the local Six Chuter dealer.  I wanted to give him an opportunity to give my PPC a once-over and also to help me rig the wing.  There wasn’t much help going on he pretty much did everything.  We headed over to the PPC field and started laying out the wing.  Ken the dealer went over wing layout and stowing.

Then we went for a flight in his PPC so Ken could show me the big difference between PPG’s and PPC’s; the slower response.

ppc

It really did feel like flying a bus around the sky.  At least compared to my PPG.  After a few circuits and a landing I asked Ken to do the first flight on my P3 Lite.

Ken reported that it flew great but needs a little tweaking to get the exhaust gas temperature down.  Will be working on that this week.

P3 Engine Break-In Complete!

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Building, Six Chuter P32 Comments

After some back and forth with the factory I was finally able to finish my engine break-in today.  My EGT’s were still running a little hot so I did two things; I started from scratch on the air screw and idle screw on the carburetor, and I CAREFULLY mixed 20:1 Amsoil in some premium auto fuel and replace the fuel that was in my tank with this new gas.  I may have been a little sloppy with my mixing before.  Sure enough, this time EGTs were down where they were supposed to be.  So…

Ta-da!

breakin-checklist

So the next step is to let Ken, the local Six Chuter dealer take a look at it, rig the parachute, and probably let him do the first flight to make sure everything is copacetic.  There’s a possibility of me being able to go up to see Ken on Sunday, but if not then some time next week.  We just have to work around the winds.

PPC Engine Break-In

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Building, Six Chuter P3Leave a comment

After the first run of the engine the very next thing you have to do is go through the break-in process.  I’ve been experiencing heating issues with trying to go through the break-in period.  It’s running hot.  I called Six-Chuter’s Rolando and he had me adjust the needle in the carburetor.  This helped but I’m still running overly hot in the 4500-5000 rpm band.

egt

My next steps are to, drain the fuel and put in new fuel, I’m going to double-check the oil/fuel mix ratio to make sure I didn’t mess something up.  I’m also going to call Rolando again to see if there is anything else I can check.

PPC Engine Start!

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, BuildingLeave a comment

This weekend I went to a local fly-in to meet up with a friend of mine who helped me out with the first startup of my engine.  It took a little to start it but it finally came to life.  Joey video’d the startup but it’s shared in a private facebook group.  I’ll try to get the video and put it up here.

So now that I got the engine running it’s time to do the break in.  There is a very specific procedure you have to follow, running the engine at specific RPMs for specific amounts of time.  In doing this I noticed a couple of issues.  My idle RPM was registering at 3000 RPMs.  The engine seemed to not want to run at that RPM very well.  Also, Joey remarked that it wasn’t very windy behind the prop.  Those were two things that were nagging at me.  So I changed the calibration of the tachometer so that it registered the idle RPM at 1500 RPM or so.  That seemed more in line with what the engine was actually doing.  Then when I ran the engine at the prescribed break-in RPMs, it ran much smoother and I could feel more “push” from the prop.

Another problem I ran into at first engine start was that my EGT (exhaust gas temperature) didn’t seem to be working.  It turned out that it was!  I just needed to run the engine at a higher RPM.  So as I was doing the break-in at the higher RPMs I noticed my EGT was up past the recommended 1100 deg Fahrenheit and even started to hit 1200 which is the absolute max.  I decided to throttle back and let the engine cool down after which I shut down.  I’ll contact Six Chuter tomorrow to get their opinion on what I should do to fix this problem.

I now leave with with few photos from the MacFarlane Farms Fly-in…

 

PPC Assmbly Complete!

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Building, Six Chuter P3Leave a comment

This is my wrap-up video for my Six Chuter P3 Lite powered parachute.   I only have to items to finish; connect the gas line to the fuel tank, connect the voltage regulator to the battery.  Everything else is complete.  I had to move a few things around when I found I had mounted them in the wrong place.  Now I have holes where I don’t need them.  We call those lightening holes.  An aircraft term used to refer to holes cut to save weight in the airplane. 🙂

Anyway, here’s a wrap-up video…

Second Best Day In The Christian Faith

On By The Flying DutchmanIn FaithLeave a comment

Good Friday.  What’s so good about it?  It is the day my Savior and King Jesus Christ, Son of God finished His work of salvation.  Fully man and fully God, He knew no sin, yet became sin for us.  He fulfilled every requirement of the Law for us now and forever.

The day after tomorrow we celebrate the greatest victory in history: Resurrection Day!  The day death was defeated.  Because death could not hold Him, death cannot hold us!

PPC Assembly Day 11

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Aviation, Building, Rans S-6ES Coyote2 Comments

Progress for today:

  1. Strobe mounted and wired in.
  2. Fuel tubes and squeeze bulb fabricated.
  3. Battery ground cable installed.

I found that I mounted the started solenoid in the wrong place.  It can still work here.  The only problem would be the longer rear wire.  If I can’t tuck it away safely, I’ll move the solenoid.

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