First Flight of N2PZ - Page 136.

June 9, 2005:  If yesterday was the birth of N2PZ, then today the baby got to go HOME!  Lowell went down to the end of the taxiway, took his position, then zoomed the camera lens to the north end of runway 21.  That's me in takeoff position with Rich Nadig in his RV-3 in the run up area ready to give chase when I start my takeoff roll.  I started my takeoff at the end of the runway beyond the displaced threshold at the Collegedale, Tennessee airport.

Lowell took plenty of pictures.  I am just past the runway threshold and rolling up to flying speed quickly.  I advanced the throttle slowly as I had learned last week from Mike Seager at Scappoose, Oregon.  (I have uploaded a new uncompressed photo below.)

And there it is, flight at last.  I held the stick a bit more forward so I would not climb too high while passing Lowell's vantage point with my camera.  Rich is pulling onto the runway to give chase.

This is about 100 feet over the runway.  The initial climb needed almost no rudder input due to the small amount of offset to the horizontal stabilizer.  I can see that I am going to be very busy in the next few days taking data to determine the capabilities of this airplane of mine with it's wing span of 28 feet. 

Bye, bye as we say in the South...

Rich was close behind with his RV-3!

Lowell zoomed the lens all the way out to catch this picture of Rich pulling in behind me on the crosswind leg.  I said it was hazy today, so look carefully to see both airplanes seen as dark specs in the image below as we are going EAST to the practice area for Collegedale Airport. (February 3, 2008:   I reprocessed the original uncompressed image and added the white ellipse to make both airplanes easy to find in this photo.)

Rich had initially said to make two circuits of the pattern, so I did a fly-by around 200 feet without too much power on.  Then we headed out East of Collegedale to do some maneuvers and check engine operation parameters.  The takeoff was at 2700 RPM with full power and the prop at minimum pitch.  I pulled the power back to 25 inches of manifold pressure and 2500 RPM and quickly got to pattern altitude of 1800 feet MSL.   I pulled the power back again and set the RPM to 2300 and we headed out to do turns and slow flight.  Here is larger view of our airplanes with me on the left and Rich flying chase plane duty behind me.

When I put the plane into a LEFT 30-degree banked turn and trimmed the elevator for constant altitude, it stayed in the turn "hands off of the control stick" without rolling out or into any unstable condition.  I had seen this when I rode with Larry Westbrook way back on December 27, 2003.  This is one sweet-flying airplane!  I turned on all the lights and the alternator was steady with the voltage at 13.6 volts under full load.  Rich saw nothing unusual trailing behind me (no oil or fuel on his windshield).  I rolled the airplane right to make a right 30-degree banked turn without changing the elevator trim.  I was very happy to see another hands-off perfect turn.  After a few minutes we headed back to the Collegedale Airport.