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Thread: N36KJ Flies First Time

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    Senior Member Maverick's Avatar
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    Mar 2017
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    Default N36KJ Flies First Time

    I made the first flight of my KF5 this morning. In general, it was an uneventful flight. After two high speed taxi tests I took off and flew to 3000' and circled the airport pattern. I lifted off the runway at 40mph indicated. Climb was amazing. I climbed at 70mph and was getting just under 1000' fpm. I ran the engine at 5500 rpm and was indicating 100mph, 5650 rpm = 105mph and 5800 rpm = 110. I did not make any inflight adjustments to the prop. My static RPM was set to 5200 rpm prior to takeoff.

    The plane wanted to roll to the left. I'll make adjustments to the rigging this next week to deal with that.

    On approach for landing the first attempt I was high and fast. Attempted at 70 mph on final and just saw myself floating a long way so did a go-around. On the second approach I came down sooner and backed off to 60 mph. The landing wasn't stellar but, I didn't brake the plane. I did a full stop then went around the pattern again for another attempt and the tower controller indicated that my transmissions were garbled to near inaudible so I made a full stop landing. My approach again was at 60 and I tried to get it down to 55 but, I didn't use flaps so I couldn't seem to get it to slow down. Touchdown was a little bouncy. I have the tall landing gear so, I need to get in more practice with it to determine if I want to trade it out.

    My CFI was with another student in the pattern at the time of my radio call and he said it was loud and clear but lots of background noise so, he's loaning me a set of LightSpeed noise canceling that is supposed to noise cancel the microphone too.

    All in all, I'm happy with the flying experience but, I'm still a Rotax neophyte. I've only flown Continentals from A65, C85, 0200, 0300 & 0470 so getting used to the high rpms of the Rotax is a little disconcerting. I like the Continental better as a motor but, the difference between the climb and empty weight of this KF5 and my first one w/ the 0200 is so amazing, I'm sure I'll learn to cope with the Rotax.

    I have the Grand Rapids EIS which, after finally getting to work with it some, I like. I set my MaxEGT at 1450 degrees F and was exceeding that occasionally. Looking at the FlyRotax documentation it looks like that should be about right but, because I kept getting alerts, I think I'll raise the MaxEGT to 1500. I also set the MaxSplit to 85 degrees and I got alarms for it often also so, am thinking I'll go up to 100 degrees on it.

    Thanks to all the help from you guys and the past discussions you have had that I was able to garner from your experiences.20201024_091327[1].jpg20201024_091313[1].jpgAttachment 25894
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    EAA, AOPA
    KF5 (N49FK & N36KJ)
    Phoenix, AZ

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