Flight Summary
- Date
- 09/19/2015
- Total Time
- 3.3
- Aircraft
- N8035G (177RG)
- Distance
- 292.3 nm
- Route of Flight
- KAUS KRAS KAUS
Flight Images
Maintenance Flight to the Beach
Adding Hours to the Cardinal
In April 2015, our Cardinal had a gear up landing (Another pilot was flying, not myself). It has been a long and hard battle to get the repair work complete and the airplane in the air again. Last night we were able to complete the 1st test flights with her. We did a 1.0 hour flight staying in gliding range of KAUS at 8,500. During this flight we were ops checking everything in the airplane and watching engine performance on our GEM engine analyzer. After completing that flight, we landed at KGTU for fuel and to inspect the engine for leaks. After the A&P checked it out and said the engine was looking great, we took off to head back to Austin.
Second set of Test Flights
Today we took off from 17L in very light IFR conditions. While the plane was down the FAA finally returned our paper work making the KLN94b IFR certified for the Cardinal. Still being a new engine, I would have never taken off into Hard IFR with her. But the field was actually reporting VFR conditions with a broken layer at 4,500. We went ahead and filed IFR and headed to the beach. The goal was to add another careful 3 hours to our new engine to help her break in. Our goal was to keep the CHT below 375f. We were able to keep them around 350 or lower.
Here are some of the pictures we were able to take: