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Kurt Haller RV-9A
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Date:  7-14-2019
Number of Hours:  0.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  FIRST FLIGHT, PART II

Then it was time for The Builder to take the controls. Barry, admittedly, handed over a perfectly trimmed aircraft, but it handled like it was on rails compared to the RV-7A I flew for transition training: one stray thought and heading, altitude, airspeed, and usually all three rapidly diverged. For my bird, just a bit of pressure to bank 20 deg left, and with feet on the floor she held bank and altitude with zero (perceived) back pressure, ball dead-center. Just like a demo ride some 14 years ago…

I did have to hold a touch of left aileron, even though Barry (I noticed later, on the ground) had cranked in 100% left roll trim. There was a 0.8 gal gas imbalance to the right, where we kept the fuel selector for the duration of the flight, but that’s probably not the issue. At debrief, Barry thought rigging was fine for engine break in. Engage in fine tuning once the gear have their clothes on.
Then it was Barry’s airplane again to explore slow flight. Same gentle handling tests at 80, 75, 70 kias. As expected, we’d lost some altitude to get so slow, sans flaps. So, we started climbing back to 5000 to go for 65 kias, then repeat the slow speed sequence with flaps. And that’s when we had a bit of an Apollo 11 LM flight computer moment:

I noticed the Dynon 7” MFD screen was displaying white x’es in the transponder and COM tuning annunciation areas at the top of the display. Huh? White? Never seen white x’es before. Then I noticed none of the engine gauges were moving, and on the Dynon 10” PFD, neither were any of the flight instruments. Barry’s a heck of a pilot, but no one is _that_ smooth!

PNF: “Um, looks like we’ve lost instruments.”
PF: “What? Which one?”
PNF: “Well, all of ‘em. Dynon screens both frozen.”
PF:

OK, Barry flying, engine and airframe still humming along, so I finished winding a mental watch, and was about to try forcing a restart. (Glad I placarded the Dynon three-fingered reboot salute on the panel!).
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The builder is flying! :::8^0

The builder is flying! :::8^0

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