Anyway, this week I finally finished up the second half of my IPC (instrument proficiency check) with Howard Long. For those non-pilots out there (I'm surprised how many people follow this site but aren't even rated pilots yet, let alone builders), an instrument rating needs to be kept current. Now, normally, the regs say:
...no person may act as pilot in command under IFR or in weather conditions less than the minimums prescribed for VFR, unless within the preceding 6 calendar months, that person has:
- For the purpose of obtaining instrument experience in an aircraft (other than a glider), performed and logged under actual or simulated instrument conditions, either in flight in the appropriate category of aircraft for the instrument privileges sought or in a flight simulator or flight training device that is representative of the aircraft category for the instrument privileges sought—
- At least six instrument approaches;
- Holding procedures; and
- Intercepting and tracking courses through the use of navigation systems.
By the way, the above is a snippet from the FARs from who knows when...this is not for legal reference. Who knows, in a couple of years things might change. Consult the current Federal Aviation Regulations.
Anyway, so those are the normal regs for an instrument pilot who stays current. If you haven't flown your six approaches and yadda yadda within six months, you can always go back up with a safety pilot and do your approaches under the hood...and you'll be current again. The catch is that if you wait more than 12 calendar months from when you were last current (don't hold me to that, I'm pulling it out of my butt), then you can't just hop up in a plane with a safety pilot, fly your six approaches, and be done. The feds require that you then go through an IPC to refresh your currence, and that must be done with a CFII.
Needless to say, while I was building, I barely flew at all. My original intent was to rent a plane a couple of times each month, once being at night, and maintain all of my currencies during the construction process. Yeah, royt. That delusion lasted like 10 minutes. It's so friggin' expensive to rent planes these days. I decided to let my currency lapse and pour the money otherwise spent on renting planes into the plane I was building. Good choice, but it came with a consequence...two years later (it had been a little more than two years since I had last done any instrument flying in the Mooney), I need an IPC. (Jeez, was that a long-winded way of saying "I was due for an IPC" or what?!)
I met Howard Long a couple of years ago. I actually don't remember the first time I met him in person...maybe it was at Rosie's 1000-hour BBQ up at Rosamond? I forget. Anyway, Howard is an RV buff (a builder someday for sure). He has worked as a controller for Los Angeles TRACON for a while, and he's a CFII to boot. A few months ago, Rosie and Howard pulled up at my hangar in 8PV (Paul and Victoria's RV-6A) one day while Paul was doing some instrument training. I guess it was then that I made the connection and decided that Howard would be a great person to do my IPC eventually. I could have gone with a local flunky instructor, but I would much rather do it with somebody I know and trust. I figure Howard could also bring to the table additional perspective since he's a controller. It definitely was a good choice to go with Howard.
Lemme get slightly off topic for a second and say that I've had some good and bad experiences with flight instructors. Mostly good. I've been kind of careful about how I've chosen flight instructors in the recent past, and I've been fortunate to have hooked up with three people who I think are top-notch (and NO, I have no affiliation financial or otherwise with these guys):
Anyway, those are the instructors with which I've had good experiences recently. Ok, back to the details, because I can tell you're hungry for all the nitty gritty about my approaches. Well, there's not much to talk about. I flew "acceptable" ILS and VOR approaches into Palmdale and Fox, and Howard signed me off as instrument current yet again. Free to go poke holes in clouds...if I have to.
A lot of people have been wondering and asking about how the Dynon EFIS-D10 is in instrument conditions. I love it and I hate it. Mostly love it. The attitude indicator and heading band are friggin' awesome. The airspeed is easy to read (numerically in the "big box"). The rest is weak. The VSI is useless since it has no "trend bar" to visually indicate the direction of motion...just having a number and a little up/down arrow is just plain NOT enough for me. Altitude...reading a number is doable, it's just not ideal. I rely very heavily on my "steam gauges" when flying instruments. I think that's a habit that I simply will not be able to force myself to break in actual instrument conditions. Dynon as a company recommends against using the EFIS-D10 in instrument conditions, and I think that's a sound recommendation. It's only because I have backup flight instruments that I will consider flying in IMC.
More gripes about the Dynon...the "ball" (slip indicator) is useless most of the time when flying IFR, because I'm constantly using the "bugs" feature or the "timer" feature. And that's another gripe. If I need to quickly set up a timer, no can do. It takes too many button hits to get out of whatever mode I'm in (usually heading bug mode) and into the timer mode. I think on ILS approaches I will use the GX60's timer functionality instead of relying on the Dynon.
I don't mean to complain about the Dynon too much. I mean, I'm trying to use it in conditions for which it was NOT intended to be used. And when you get down to it, the attitude and heading reference aspects of it ROCK THE HOUSE. It takes some getting used to when really relying on it for attitude reference, but it's basically like flying a flight simulator on your computer. I hate to make it sound like that, but it's true. Anyway, I will have no hesitation doing "light IFR" in the near future.
Changing gears...back to "RV maintenance" and stuff like that...
After dropping Howard back off at Fox, I was going to fly back to Chino. I do have to do real work some of the time, after all. When I did my runup, I was startled when I turned off the left mag (running only on the Lightspeed Plasma II electronic ignition) and the engine ran rough. The RPM dropped and it felt like the engine was only running on two (maybe 3) cylinders. Up until that point (93 hours at that point), the LSE system had been smooth as silk! As everybody says, you can turn off the mag usually and you don't notice a difference. Well, today it was the opposite, and in a big way.
I figured it might have been plug fouling, so I did my best to lean and clean it out on the ground. I ran it up to about 1900 RPM and just leaned the crap out of it, right up to the point where it stumbled from fuel starvation. I ran it lean for a minute or two, but every time I tried running only on the electronic ignition, it stumbled. No joy. I ended up making the judgment call to fly it home in that condition, essentially putting the onus on the Slick mag. This was arguably a risky decision, but I wanted to fly it to see if I could lean & clean it out better in flight. I figured maybe I could run it hard and lean it way out. I was very skeptical, though, because I normally have been flying on the very lean side (usually 50 LOP unless I'm running hard, in which case 75 ROP). I had just flown an hour and a half, leaning aggressively, and I seriously doubted it was fouling that was causing the issue. Anyway, I decided to head home. I was in the desert at the time, so viable off-airport landing options were a-plenty... In the end, I made it home fine, obviously.
During the flight I periodically checked the LSE by switching off the mag, and it continued to run rough. Felt like it was missing at least one cylinder, sputtering and backfiring every few cycles. Ugh. EGTs and CHTs didn't really give me any clues that I could pick up on, because I didn't want to run on the LSE-only long enough to determine the EGT trend. (I now realize that while still on the ground, I could have shut off the LSE and watched the EGTs...whichever EGTs rose would reflect fine-running cylinders...whichever EGT(s) did not rise would reflect the bum cylinder(s)).
Once back at the hangar I removed the top cowl and pulled the plugs. They looked normal. Tan in color, dry as a bone. I checked the gap, and I noticed that the electrodes had eroded a bit and the gap had increased from my original .032" setting to about .036". This shouldn't have caused the problem, though. Just for kicks, I regapped 'em to .032" and put the plugs back in. Recowled, started up, ran up, and again the Lightspeed system ran rough. Again, I wish I had realized at the time that shutting off the electronic ignition would have shown me, based on EGTs that did NOT rise, which cylinders weren't firing. Probably.
Anyway, back to troubleshooting. The variables involved could have been the crank position sensor (loose, shifted, etc.), the coils, spark plug wires, the "brain," the RG400 wires running to the coils, etc. I figured if it was the crank sensor, I'd have to pull the prop to double check the clearance with the flywheel magnets. Why not replace the plugs first, just to rule that out?
My engine & Plasma II came with Denso W24EMR-C spark plugs, which is what Klaus recommends for the system. He sells those inexpensively, but I tried to find them locally. Good luck! No joy.
This morning (May 26) I spoke on the phone with Klaus about it, and he confirmed that the problem could be due to any number of the things I mentioned above. I expressed an interest in replacing the plugs first just to rule that out, and I told Klaus how hard a time I was having finding a source for the Denso plugs. He offered to send me some Denso plugs, which would have been fine, but I kind of wanted to know what was up today, without having to wait for the plugs before diving into the debugging process. Klaus said that if I wanted to pop some locally accessible (i.e. at an auto parts store) spark plugs in just to troubleshoot, then the NGK 5422 (BR8ES) or 4221 (BR8ET) plugs would be ok to use. He advised against keeping those in there, though, because he has seen some trouble with NGK spark plugs. Klaus said that he has tried all sorts of different spark plugs but that the W24EMR-C and W27EMR-C (slightly cooler plug) are what he uses on his own plane. I figured I'd give the NGK plugs a shot just to see if plugs were the problem.
I drove to Kragen and picked up their last four NGK 5422s, and I also got an inductive timing light while I was there...assuming that if changing the plugs out didn't solve it, the next step would be to check the LSE timing on each cylinder (LSE publishes a decent troubleshooting flow chart on http://www.lightspeedengineering.com). (Yes, I know that inductive timing lights are famous for not working on aircraft ignition systems...)
Long story short, replacing the plugs solved the problem. Once again the LSE system ran smooth as silk (10 RPM drop during an 1800 RPM runup). I flew up to Santa Paula and bought a new set of Denso spark plugs from Klaus. He had no idea why a plug would go bad, especially if it looked fine and not fouled. Since then, many people have commented that they've seen bad spark plugs right out of the box -- in many applications...trains, planes, automobiles (...those aren't pillows!!!).
Anyway, I guess my real point in all of this is to say that if anybody else is running a Lightspeed ignition on an IO-360, the NGK 5422 (BR8ES) seems like a potentially viable substitute or spare for the Denso W24EMR-C plug, should you ever get stranded and need an "auto parts store" plug in a pinch. I flew 1.7 hours today on the NGKs and didn't fall out of the sky... I'm going to keep the NGKs in my tool bag just in case.
Here's a photo I took while up at Santa Paula. This photo doesn't do it justice, but the hills to the east looked absolutely beautiful. There was more color than appears here.
Here are the spark plugs I got from Klaus. I told him the engine came with W24EMR-C plugs, and he asked, "Do you run it hard?" I answered that most of the time I run lean of peak and usually don't run all-out. He recommended using these W27's instead of the W24's because they're a cooler plug. I get the sense that the W24 might be a better performing plug. Klaus apparently runs W24 on top and W27 on bottom on his engine...or the other way around, I forget.
Shameless shot of my baby (click it for a bigger version). I like this photo...it gives me good vibes. Clear, blue sky, the sun is shining, and this puppy looks like it's just waiting for me so we can have some fun. Puppy. I'm not much of a dog person, but I guess this plane is like my dog. It's loyal, it responds to "roll over," and it's always eager to do or see something new. And it loves to play with the other puppies.
