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Flying
We just passed the 40 hr mark on our rebel. It took me a little over six weeks to get there. In these hours I have incorporated a mix of flight testing and just plain fun flying! Here are some numbers for those of you interested. These are mostly flights with full fuel, 50 lbs in the tail, and me (170) lbs in the plane. Empty dry weight is 1050 so these tests were done at approximately 1500 lbs. VY seems to be right at 60 kts and 2100 fpm. Deck angle is scary! Stall clean is 48 kts. Two notches of flap gives a 43 kt stall. I am planning on adding a third notch of flap as is typical for rebels. VX has been fun to play with and is right at 55 kts. I haven't really settled on what the plane likes for cruise. I lean aggressively any power setting below 65% and typically see 92-94 kts in reflex mode burning around 8 gpm. At altitudes above about 3000 I can get it below 8 gpm easily. Full power runs burn about 16-18 gpm.
To see a video of our rebel's first flight click here .
Off Airport
Well, this photo pretty much says it all! This is why we built our plane. Before flying our plane for the first time I took a bush flying course given by Dru Haag who operates Above Alaska Aviation in Talkeetna This is a great course and includes both ground and flight instruction on off airport landings. I highly recommend it. As with most flying scenarios...it definitely showed me I have lots to learn. But my friend John Booher took me up to the Knik river and glacier and showed me some semi-friendly strips that I can practice on. This place is amazing; only 20 minutes from our house and it rivals many state parks. In fact, in many states it would be a state park. Here in Alaska, it's just another place. It offers many landing strips, sheep/goat hunting, icebergs in the lake, and of course a glacier.
As we start to build time and go places we'll need a place to post photos from the experience. I have set up another album in our Coppermine gallery for this purpose. To access the new stuff and any videos I post you can click on this link:click here
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