|
|
I'm not sure I can offer much help John. The ducted fan cools my installation on the ground so I can run it indefinitely. I know if I take the fanduct off, it will eventually overheat just idling on the ground.
I think I saw on your website you have a cooling fan installed on your rad? That should help.
On my first flight the coolant temp was not a problem (never has been) but oil temp went to 240. I stayed in the pattern (I was planning to go high and feel things out) but I had to go around twice and didn't get it down until the 3rd approach. Best advise I can offer is "fly the plane" (origin Burt Rutan: don't get distracted by some anomaly and forget to fly the airplane).
On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 20:22:30 -0600, Russell Duffy wrote
I'm signed off and ready to fly, Congrats.
Do you 13B drivers tend to just taxi out at low rpm then launch? Would your engine overheat if you did a 15 minute medium power runup? I'd appreciate any general thoughts, or comments on how much ground running I should expect to get away with before the temps get too high. Anything else I should check?
I'm not really sure that it takes to shut off the bypass hole in a 3rd gen housing. Can you just tap it, and screw in a plug like we do in the 2nd gen housings? It would be nice to end up with the ability to run a thermostat if you later want to. Perhaps you could pick up a spare housing, and have one welded, and the other open. Not the most convenient way to swap a thermostat in and out though. If you want to hedge your bets, I would suggest no thermostat, plain
distilled water, and the highest pressure cap you can find. Getting to the runway without any excess heat would be a good plan also. Your plane should be very efficient, and should get you around the pattern at very low throttle once you get some altitude. Once you have some airspeed, and reduce power, the cooling system should recover quickly from any excess heat that built up (if any). I think it's wise to "plan" to make the first flight a brief trip around the pattern, then continue the flight longer if cooling is working well. Unfortunately, a quick trip around the pattern is probably not the best overall first flight test schedule, but it becomes far better than overheating :-) As for cooling on the ground, I don't seem to be in any danger of
overheating on the ground, but you're a a severe disadvantage since your
prop is on the wrong end of the plane. I just can't imagine that you get nearly the same airflow from the prop that tractor configurations do. Aside from Perry, is there another pusher flying? Good luck. My second first flight should happen this weekend.
Rusty (NOT being laid off now. Philips gave me the local job I wanted with 45 minutes to spare)
|
|