The nose castor wheel had been sticking a little despite the preload set to about 4 .lbs. I disassembled it and soaked the brass oilite washer in 160F 30 wt. mineral oil. I put a light coat of molybdenum grease on the spindle shaft and set the preload to 5 .lbs.
Ballast was configured to simulate a 160 .lb pilot and a 200 .lb copilot with the CG at 99.6 with 22 gallons fuel. 51 .lbs in the nose, 33 .lbs by the rudder pedals and 10 .lbs in the copilot seat. It took approximately 16 seconds to rotate and lift off before midfield on the 3740' runway.
OAT was 50F, ~10 knot wind almost down the runway. Ceiling was reported at 5K but seemed lower near XBP with some rain developing (not predicted). The cabin was comfortable despite getting down to 48F, hitting TAS over 160 knots occasionally.
Had an operator error issue with the GoPro. Only got a photo of my face when turning it on. A few flights ago, the video was inverted because the camera lost it's settings.
Briefly attempted tweaking the autopilot. Switched to simplified AP and the roll control seems to be working fairly well. Switched to Expert mode and the pitch control was pitching to much. Due to the low cloud ceiling, I opted to defer AP tuning to more optimal conditions.
I turned base/final at about 77 knots, put the landing brake down but my finger bumps the switch on the throttle and raises the board before touching down. I need to put the console cover on to protect the switch.
Analyzing the CHT's, looks like they could be balanced a touch better, but the delta is about 30F. I'm going to try one more time to see if I can find and remedy the oil leak using soapy water and some pressure in the motor, then draw a vacuum and suck some Loctite into the leak if necessary.
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