GyroRon
06-09-2004, 06:43 PM
Well it rained here cats and dogs yesterday and I elected not to work today to let the lawns dry up some, so I went to the airport to work on the gyro some more.
I tried to air up the shocks with my aircompressor and I ended up allowing the little bit of nitrogen in the one shock I started on out and the gyro was leaning way over so my first order of business was to find nitrogen to fill the shocks. No one at Goose creek had any so I called a friend who is a A&P and he had a tank with some nitrogen in it but he was working at his airport about 25 miles away - by air - and wasn't able to bring the tank to me..... SO I flew over to his airport in my Phantom and grabbed the tank and put it in my lap and flew back. The tank was nearly empty so I figured if I crashed it might blow my balls off but maybe not kill me, Getting the shocks aired up was worth the risk!
Got back and aired the shocks up and WOW it sure looks pretty sitting like it is supposed to. Hope the shocks don;t leak down like the regular airshocks do....
So then I took some gas jugs and mixed up some premix and one by one filled the seat tank one gallon at a time. It took a while cause I had to pur gas from a 5 gallon tank into a Mr. Funnel into a one gallon tank and then pour that into a 2 gallon tank - cause the 1 gallon tank spills while pouring fluids - and then into the gyro. Marked my seat tank at each gallon as I poured it in. Doesn't hold as much as they say these tanks do....
Then I got out my hoist and lifted the gyro to do my hangtesting. I called Ernie to confirm what I needed to see and got 0-5 degrees nose down on the mast as the range and that is at a half a tank of fuel stick centered. Got one of the farmhands at Goose Creek to help me and we measured the hang angle with both me and him in it - one at a time! - and with a full tank and a half tank. Range varied between 2-3 degrees nose down.... PERFECT!!!
So then it was time to try to do the first engine run. Well It wouldn't start... So I had to find out why and saw that there was no spark. Turns out I had mistaken the lighting coil wires for the kill wires off the coils and had hooked the stuff up wrong, so I had to mess up my pretty wiring harness and snip the wires and re connect to the proper leads and tested for spark and got it! So I primed the engine once more and she started on the second pull. Ran it only for a minute and shut it down and spend a hour or so doing final install on the battery and checking coolant levels, double checking the programming on the EIS and giving it a good looking over all around and got out my earplugs and the timer and got the engine break in underway.
The break in went well. The Coolant temp never got over 148 degrees, the CHT's were pretty even and stayed around 210-220 and EGT were around 1050 at full throttle and peaked at 1200-1220 at 5500 rpm. The engine speed was a tab too high at 6900 rpm so I guess I need another degree of pitch in the prop, and that may change the EGTs but otherwise I will need to raise the needles up one notch and all should be dandy.
Still can't get the pre rotator system bled. Going to have to work more on that and have to make a check on the rotorhead. Also still got to tighten the front steering nuts and install brake cables when they arrive. And I need the Yaw string.... Otherwise it is close.
Oh and I need to replace the crappy altimeter that I got from Lockwood, it is not holding the set altitude as the engine runs, the little bit of vibration it is recieving is causing the needle to fall to the bottom of the gauge.
Here is the gyro hanging from the beam
I tried to air up the shocks with my aircompressor and I ended up allowing the little bit of nitrogen in the one shock I started on out and the gyro was leaning way over so my first order of business was to find nitrogen to fill the shocks. No one at Goose creek had any so I called a friend who is a A&P and he had a tank with some nitrogen in it but he was working at his airport about 25 miles away - by air - and wasn't able to bring the tank to me..... SO I flew over to his airport in my Phantom and grabbed the tank and put it in my lap and flew back. The tank was nearly empty so I figured if I crashed it might blow my balls off but maybe not kill me, Getting the shocks aired up was worth the risk!
Got back and aired the shocks up and WOW it sure looks pretty sitting like it is supposed to. Hope the shocks don;t leak down like the regular airshocks do....
So then I took some gas jugs and mixed up some premix and one by one filled the seat tank one gallon at a time. It took a while cause I had to pur gas from a 5 gallon tank into a Mr. Funnel into a one gallon tank and then pour that into a 2 gallon tank - cause the 1 gallon tank spills while pouring fluids - and then into the gyro. Marked my seat tank at each gallon as I poured it in. Doesn't hold as much as they say these tanks do....
Then I got out my hoist and lifted the gyro to do my hangtesting. I called Ernie to confirm what I needed to see and got 0-5 degrees nose down on the mast as the range and that is at a half a tank of fuel stick centered. Got one of the farmhands at Goose Creek to help me and we measured the hang angle with both me and him in it - one at a time! - and with a full tank and a half tank. Range varied between 2-3 degrees nose down.... PERFECT!!!
So then it was time to try to do the first engine run. Well It wouldn't start... So I had to find out why and saw that there was no spark. Turns out I had mistaken the lighting coil wires for the kill wires off the coils and had hooked the stuff up wrong, so I had to mess up my pretty wiring harness and snip the wires and re connect to the proper leads and tested for spark and got it! So I primed the engine once more and she started on the second pull. Ran it only for a minute and shut it down and spend a hour or so doing final install on the battery and checking coolant levels, double checking the programming on the EIS and giving it a good looking over all around and got out my earplugs and the timer and got the engine break in underway.
The break in went well. The Coolant temp never got over 148 degrees, the CHT's were pretty even and stayed around 210-220 and EGT were around 1050 at full throttle and peaked at 1200-1220 at 5500 rpm. The engine speed was a tab too high at 6900 rpm so I guess I need another degree of pitch in the prop, and that may change the EGTs but otherwise I will need to raise the needles up one notch and all should be dandy.
Still can't get the pre rotator system bled. Going to have to work more on that and have to make a check on the rotorhead. Also still got to tighten the front steering nuts and install brake cables when they arrive. And I need the Yaw string.... Otherwise it is close.
Oh and I need to replace the crappy altimeter that I got from Lockwood, it is not holding the set altitude as the engine runs, the little bit of vibration it is recieving is causing the needle to fall to the bottom of the gauge.
Here is the gyro hanging from the beam