First Flight of Eric's Patrol N316BP

[mikeno]

Congratulations Eric! Thanks for sharing the videos. Looking forward to more. Also, are there really trees in leaf somewhere in this world? And grass? Send some warm weather to the great state of Misery please! Job well done! Mike BearHawk #1250 KLXT

[alaskabearhawk]

Congrats Eric! Another epic accomplishment...

[AKpatrol]

Fantastic! You've built what looks to be a beautiful aircraft.


With mine that I get more of a nose drop at stall with full flaps than with zero flaps. A non-event, regardless.


I too have no static system and get high indicated airspeeds. Any advise on how and where to put a static port?

[Enewton57]

I will put two static ports in, one static port on each side of the fuselage in the bay directly behind the baggage compartment. That seemed to work well on my Bearhawk.

[Battson]

With mine that I get more of a nose drop at stall with full flaps than with zero flaps. A non-event, regardless.

I find with the 4-place -- maybe similar in the patrol too -- if you ease it slowly towards the stall, then you run out of control deflection just before it stalls; and you just kinda mush your way downwards. If you jerk it into the stall more rapidly, then you can get it to stall properly with a slight nose drop, after which you've dropped back into the 'mush' zone. Certainly is a non-event if you're in balance. I haven't tried yet, but I am interested to see whether using VGs for increased control effect would cause a more fully-developed stall. Mike Creek and others would no-doubt know the answer.

[Zzz]

Yes it is. Bob recommended that I keep a lettle power on to get the nose up a little higher. I am going to install a pitot static system before i do any more stall testing. so I can get some accurate numbers. At any rate, the stalls are very gentle and you maintain full control all the time.

The Bearhawk wing designs are pretty tried and true, so you're probably not in for any surprises. As a novice builder, is there anything a kit builder can do wrong that might result in unwanted stall behavior? Angle of incidence is pretty much established and matched, right?

[Mark Goldberg]

Angle of incidence is set when you drill your wings to the fuselage. If you do it carefully and follow the instructions - you will be fine. That both sides be the same is the most important thing. Mark

[Rick]

Congratulations Eric!!

[Wayne Massey]

Nice job Eric looks great! Congratulations!... Wayne BH733

[Erbman]

Eric - you're welcome! I was just teaching my TPS class about why a cabin static doesn't work yesterday. I read this today before class and passed on to them that you had come to the same conclusion. My static ports are on a Pitot-static tube on a boom out of the left wing, much like a Cessna 195. Not too many people have followed my lead on that one.

As for your stalls, if you reach full aft stick with no nose drop or wing drop, that just means that the elevator has insufficient authority to drive the wing to the critical angle of attack. You still have aileron control because the wing is still flying. As you move the cg aft, the elevator will have more authority and you may find that you can separate the flow over the wing and get a more typical stall behavior. Full aft stick "stalls" are common in the gliders I fly.

[Flytaildragger]

Congratulations Eric, just watched your flight this morning on a large screen with good volume. It was as I was in the rear seat with you. AWSOME!
Dave Snyder P-154

[dedgemon]

Eric,
how many hours so far? Any status to report?

[LynnR]

Are you going to join us in Kanab this September?

[Helidesigner]

Congratulations Eric. Nice flight report. Sounds like just the kind of first flight you want, exciting and boring at the same time.

Mark
QB73 N83ME

[Enewton57]

I have been flying and changing a few things and flying some more, I have about 10 hours on it now. My airspeed indicator was way off (to the high side). I added a couple of static ports on the fuselage sides ran the tubes to a Tee and then to the airspeed indicator. Flew it again and it was better but still indicated way too high. So I replaced the cheap made in china airspeed indicator with a UMA one. It now reads fairly accurate. Here are some photos of my static port installation.



Been very busy on my job and poor weather conditions on my day off so I haven't been able to fly as much as I would like. I hope to get some time in on Sunday and will post some numbers then.

[Battson]

Running the lines from the static ports uphill at first will help prevent getting water trapped in the lines. A careless spray of water during a wash is a classic for getting water in there.
It's also good to put a T-junction in the line at a low point or just before the instruments, with a nut over the spare end of the tee (facing downwards). This creates a water trap to protect your instrument from water, and allows you to drain any accumulated water at the 100hr/annual without disconnecting the static line.

[Enewton57]

Hi everyone,

I got to get in a couple of hours in my Patrol this afternoon. Today was an ideal day with Clear skies, cool temperatures and calm winds. Here is my flight report:

Since I have not been able to get a stall even with full aft stick, I tried Bob's suggestion of putting some weight in the back. So I added 50 lbs in the baggage compartment and took off. As a reminder, my previous attempts at power off stalls would result in full aft stick and the airspeed would only go down to about 50 mph and then the airplane would kind of stay with the nose slightly below the horizon, no indication of a nose drop and no stall. With 50 lbs in the baggage compartment, I was finally able to achieve full deep stalls, both with flaps and no flaps. Power-off Stall speed with zero flaps was 40 mph and had a slight buffeting in the tail just prior to the stall. The nose dropped below the horizon with no wing drops and recovery was instant with release of back pressure on the stick. Stall speed with full flaps was 36 mph.

Climb at 85 mph yielded a 1700 FPM climb according to the built-in VSI in the PS Engineering EIS I have installed in the panel. I will do timed climbs later to get better accuracy.

I currently have a fixed pitch prop and kind of wish I had a bit more pitch in it. I tried a couple different power settings. At 3000 feet, I tried 2500 RPM and the had a Manifold Pressure of 20" and showed a cruise speed of 135 mph TAS. I pushed it up to 2600 RPM and got a Manifold pressure of 22" and got a speed of 142 mph TAS. All speeds were verified with GPS ground speed and flying 3 headings.

I have to hold in some left rudder at cruise speeds so I will need to either use a tighter return spring on the left rudder pedal or install a trim tab on the rudder. I have a very slightly heavy right wing at the faster cruise speeds so will need to play with that.

My landings were much better with the ability to do a full stall. All previous ones had to be wheel landings or were bouncy due to too mujch speed.

That's it for now. Now that I have a good airspeed indicator I can get on with my test program. I will update when I get more numbers.