I've been thwarted three days in a row in my attempts to fly N891JF, after a two week hiatus due to a rare vacation. But at least I did manage to get the wheel pants back on it yesterday. Today it was quite sorted out and ready to run when I arrived at the airport, despite the 94F temp and reports of "thunderstorms and lightning in the area" on the AWOS. I figured the storms would be done by sunset, so off I went. I managed to get over 2.5 hours and another 10 full stop landings in, and I really got a handle on how to control it with the tailwheel down (finally!). I practiced on a nearby runway that's twice as wide and twice as long as mine, but I only used the left half and the first half of it. That yielded a lot of confidence, and a pretty decent landing back at my airport's short narrow strip. I even practiced some botched landings where I slipped it in the lose a lot of altitude in a hurry, and even some "re-lands", and never used half the runway at KFYM. My landing back home barely used half the runway, so I feel a lot better now.
I also did some wide open runs, stalls, all that stuff, and it appears as though I have a solid 170 mph airplane now, although I think there's at least another 5 mph hiding in the cowling and some other details. The engine runs great at 3250 rpm wide open, so after some calm-air testing, I will swap some props around to see what else I can get out of it. The funny thing about this installation is that the engine cools best at almost wide-open-throttle! After the engine is broken in, I'll do some plenums like N56ML has for a real-world comparison, although I already know that it'll run cooler that way. I'm ready for OSH now! Life is good again... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
