At the airport today I checked on the fuel tank repair I tried last week. After filling her up there were no leaks. I think I finally have the leak beat.
The past few days I’ve been reading about EGTs, and what other builder have seen and came to the conclusion that I am being too conservative with the EG temperatures. In addition, I reread the break in instructions for the Aerovee and they specifically state not to ‘baby’ the engine for the break in period. With this in mind, I decided to go for a long flight today and see what she could do. The course I chose was about 145 miles long and I flew almost the entire time at full throttle. The maximum EGT I saw was about 1500 for a few seconds but the hottest EGT was typically about 1420. Flying today I think really helped the engine. Up until this time the highest RPMs I had ever seen was barely 3100, but after awhile today I saw over 3300. The climb out RPMS were higher as well - before today I would climb out at about 2700, but today it was closer to 2900. Hopefully these numbers will get even better as she breaks in more. My Sonex is much more fun to fly today than she was yesterday - plus, no stinky gas smell.
Flight time: 2.1 Total time: 29.5 hours Number of landings: 4 total landings 75.
