Flight to RPH

1/13/2023

Changed oil, retorqued the prop bolts.  Used a black light to check for oil leaks.  Suspect that the oil drops found in the bottom aft cowl is from the breather tube.   Ran the engine and added a quart, oil is at 7.5 on the dipstick.   Filter looks good.

1/17/2023 Trip to RPH for fuel, test auto pilot:

2500' MSL, fuel flow at 7.7 GPH, TAS 154, RPM 2330, MAP at 21.9".  Flight time about 25 minutes to RPH, 58.7 miles away.  Headwind is about 12 knots.  Auto pilot worked good going to RPH.  Coming back, had some trouble after doing "Direct To", had the magenta line on the map, but the Cozy wasn't following the line.   I kept hitting buttons and turning knobs until it submitted to my will.  

1/19/2023

CG 101.7  departing for flight to Dublin. 38 Gallons, 1650 lbs. gross 51 lbs. ballast.  I had some trouble with the Dynon flight plan/auto pilot.  Switched the source to the Avidyne IFD540 and it flew fine.  Possible operator error.

Dynon and Avidyne have some nice features.  Occasionally they do exactly what I want and other times the operation seems arbitrary.  An example is trying to easily switch radio frequencies to a nearby airport.  On the IFD, you can hit the FREQ button and there's three tabs.   Sometimes the En Route or Airports tab will list the airport and sometimes it wont.  On the Dynon, I can pull the airport up, hit Info and sometimes when I hit the TUNE>COM it works and sometimes it doesn't.  If I click on the COM tab for the airport, then select the specific frequency and hit TUNE > COM it will always transfer the freq to the radio panel.

Pulled the cowls, looked for oil and found a few drops in the aft bottom cowl.  Otherwise, just some light traces around cylinder through bolts.   I should probably wash the engine with mineral spirits to clean the oil off as good as I can and do some more checks.  Also, I might put a catch bottle on the breather line.  

The left brake seems a little soft, probably needs bled again.  I'd tightened the castor wheel so it has a little higher preload, but is still a little light requiring a lot of brake tapping to taxi straight on our rough taxiways.  

Cold Air Sump with SDS butterfly K&N Filter

Superior Cold Air Sump on a Titan 370.  SDS butterfly, Showplanes bracket for the throttle.  SDS air temp sensor is mounted on a bracket under the sump.

Update 1/9/2023

Since 1/31/2022 Flight:

Dynon - Saw targets disappear when near Houston, suspect limitation issues.

Painted wheel pants with epoxy primer!  They're not the ugliest wheel pants any more.

Microphone 90 degrees out picking up cabin noise.  Rotated and seems to be better.

Need more nose down trim when running best power at 2500'.  Will need to make a stronger pitch trim spring if I run in the AVC.

Installed Koger Shade (Wide - 24"Long  not 34" Long)

Reconfigured lower cowl to direct more air to #2 & #3.

Results of flight 1/9/2023

Flew with only 51 lbs. ballast in the nose.  24 Gallons.  Gross was close to 1600 lbs.

CHT's have changed since modifying the lower cowl baffle.  Hottest to coldest: 2,1,3,4.   1 & 2 are close to the same temp, 3 & 4 are close to the same temp.  Delta between the four is a little over 20F now.   About a 10F improvement and 3 is no longer the hottest.  #4 has the heat muff for cabin heat so maybe this is good.  I'll divert more air to #3 & 4 from 1 & 2's air flow.

Still hear a metallic "ting ting" intermittently when idling at lower speed.  I haven't checked the fuel cap anchors, but the fuel & vent lines make more of a thud sound.  The control rods also don't "ring".

Tweaked the auto pilot to operate at a lower speed in preparation to do glide testing.  It seemed to do fairly well in turbulent air.

The GoPro has been user unfriendly lately.  Inverted video the last time after the app hosed up.  This time rather than video it recorded a burst.  So no video again.

When landing, my fingers are bumping the throttle switch that raises the belly brake.  I need to put the console cover on to prevent this.

The crosswind & turbulence at T67 was dicey.  There's a wind shear typically as I come over the buildings at the North end of 14.