Hi All! To anyone interested, a review of my first flight in my new to me Sonerai1....
Although it was not initially my intent, I am super stoked, and happy to say that I am the new custodian of C-GZXY! I originally contacted Steve to go have a look and see if my 5'11", 180lb frame would fit in the cabin. Steve graciously agreed to come out and meet me. We did a quick walk around and then I jumped in and discovered I fit! We discussed the mods he had made and I was impressed with Steve's workmanship. It is a very nice example of what a well built aircraft and power plant should look like, (in my humble opinion). There is some work to be done on fabric and fiberglass, but as Steve says, its 50/50.. looks good from 50' and 50 mph which is good enough for me.
I returned the following week and did some run-ups and taxi tests. It ran strong with no apparent leaks or anomalous gauge readings. It also handled alright but not great in slow taxi. Next was a shakedown flight
for me, and the bird. I requested Rwy 25, 9000' of safety margin and I wanted it all. It also allow'd the crosswind leg to be over farm fields as opposed to houses and businesses, incase things went sideways.
I'm definitely not a high time pilot with roughly 400hrs, 300+ in tailwheel, 80 in high performance with types like the Harvard (T-6 Texan for my American friends), Pitts, and RANS S9 Chaos in my logbook. So I've flown a couple "Twitchy", narrow wheel base, short airframe types and was feeling pretty confident I wouldn't have too much problem with it. Well I was wrong! I know from reading several threads on tail wheel configurations, there are several points of view and preferences. This S1 is currently set up with springs. I did note a little slop in them but thought I'd leave them initially.
As I moved the throttle to full power, things got more and more squirrely with way too much lag time between my inputs. I will admit that perhaps my inputs were too large, and I may have had the tail up too high, but there's no question I was chasing the rudder, kind of like horizontal PIO lol. Anyways, I got it pointed straight enough to rotate and got settled into the departure sequence and pattern.
Once airborn, it flew as advertised, an honest aircraft that will do exactly what you tell it, and keep doing it until you tell it something different. I called a touch and go with an approach and the landing was smooth and by the numbers, touching in 3 point as recommended. Then, on the roll, It took every bit of skill I had not too ground loop it. I fire walled it and went around for another circuit. On final, I was on high alert with my feet doing the boogie woogie in anticipation of the roll out. Better this time but still much harder than it should be with the nose swinging sharply back and forth across the centerline. I taxied back to the hangar for an inspection and review.
First thing I did was to remove a link on each spring chain for much more positive feedback and increased maneuverability in slow taxi. I expect this will greatly improve high speed handling. If still not enough for me, I'll try the direct link configuration. Second, while oil pressure remained in the green, there was a large amount collecting on the ground under the cowling. I believe this came from the oil breather overflowing as there may have been a little too much oil in it. I also saw some oil weeping around the crank seal and potentially the CSP oil pump cover. This will need to be investigated further so any advice is welcome. The only other snag was the altimeter strangely jammed at 1000ASL, not sure what that's all about, but when setting pressure manually in the Kollsman window, it does the same thing, jams at 1000'.
Some concluding thoughts.. First off, I welcome any constructive criticism, or comments. My whole purpose was to share my experience openly and honestly so I and others can learn.
Perhaps the biggest question would be, being new to type, should I have jumped into an unknown airplane and flown it? A black and white answer is no. But, I don't know of any two place Sonerai locally and with the boarders being closed, going to the States was not an option. I think getting dual time in homebuilts is hard to do in most cases but I would most definitely suggest it if that's an option. I have bought a few airplanes , six in all, and this is the first one that I did not see fly before laying out the cash. I broke a personal rule here but again, given the circumstances, there was no option. Next, maybe I should've chopped the throttle at the first sign of directional instability and gone back to re-think the rudder cables, but given how quickly things happened, and how fast I found myself flying, even though I had oodles of runway, I decided to continue the flight. All in all, things turned out well, and I'm excited to go up again and for the adventures ahead. I will continue where Steve left off with updates. The wealth of knowledge and support here is awesome! I'm looking forward to chatting with everyone and hopefully meeting some of you in person.
Kind regards,
Andy
Although it was not initially my intent, I am super stoked, and happy to say that I am the new custodian of C-GZXY! I originally contacted Steve to go have a look and see if my 5'11", 180lb frame would fit in the cabin. Steve graciously agreed to come out and meet me. We did a quick walk around and then I jumped in and discovered I fit! We discussed the mods he had made and I was impressed with Steve's workmanship. It is a very nice example of what a well built aircraft and power plant should look like, (in my humble opinion). There is some work to be done on fabric and fiberglass, but as Steve says, its 50/50.. looks good from 50' and 50 mph which is good enough for me.
I returned the following week and did some run-ups and taxi tests. It ran strong with no apparent leaks or anomalous gauge readings. It also handled alright but not great in slow taxi. Next was a shakedown flight
for me, and the bird. I requested Rwy 25, 9000' of safety margin and I wanted it all. It also allow'd the crosswind leg to be over farm fields as opposed to houses and businesses, incase things went sideways.
I'm definitely not a high time pilot with roughly 400hrs, 300+ in tailwheel, 80 in high performance with types like the Harvard (T-6 Texan for my American friends), Pitts, and RANS S9 Chaos in my logbook. So I've flown a couple "Twitchy", narrow wheel base, short airframe types and was feeling pretty confident I wouldn't have too much problem with it. Well I was wrong! I know from reading several threads on tail wheel configurations, there are several points of view and preferences. This S1 is currently set up with springs. I did note a little slop in them but thought I'd leave them initially.
As I moved the throttle to full power, things got more and more squirrely with way too much lag time between my inputs. I will admit that perhaps my inputs were too large, and I may have had the tail up too high, but there's no question I was chasing the rudder, kind of like horizontal PIO lol. Anyways, I got it pointed straight enough to rotate and got settled into the departure sequence and pattern.
Once airborn, it flew as advertised, an honest aircraft that will do exactly what you tell it, and keep doing it until you tell it something different. I called a touch and go with an approach and the landing was smooth and by the numbers, touching in 3 point as recommended. Then, on the roll, It took every bit of skill I had not too ground loop it. I fire walled it and went around for another circuit. On final, I was on high alert with my feet doing the boogie woogie in anticipation of the roll out. Better this time but still much harder than it should be with the nose swinging sharply back and forth across the centerline. I taxied back to the hangar for an inspection and review.
First thing I did was to remove a link on each spring chain for much more positive feedback and increased maneuverability in slow taxi. I expect this will greatly improve high speed handling. If still not enough for me, I'll try the direct link configuration. Second, while oil pressure remained in the green, there was a large amount collecting on the ground under the cowling. I believe this came from the oil breather overflowing as there may have been a little too much oil in it. I also saw some oil weeping around the crank seal and potentially the CSP oil pump cover. This will need to be investigated further so any advice is welcome. The only other snag was the altimeter strangely jammed at 1000ASL, not sure what that's all about, but when setting pressure manually in the Kollsman window, it does the same thing, jams at 1000'.
Some concluding thoughts.. First off, I welcome any constructive criticism, or comments. My whole purpose was to share my experience openly and honestly so I and others can learn.
Perhaps the biggest question would be, being new to type, should I have jumped into an unknown airplane and flown it? A black and white answer is no. But, I don't know of any two place Sonerai locally and with the boarders being closed, going to the States was not an option. I think getting dual time in homebuilts is hard to do in most cases but I would most definitely suggest it if that's an option. I have bought a few airplanes , six in all, and this is the first one that I did not see fly before laying out the cash. I broke a personal rule here but again, given the circumstances, there was no option. Next, maybe I should've chopped the throttle at the first sign of directional instability and gone back to re-think the rudder cables, but given how quickly things happened, and how fast I found myself flying, even though I had oodles of runway, I decided to continue the flight. All in all, things turned out well, and I'm excited to go up again and for the adventures ahead. I will continue where Steve left off with updates. The wealth of knowledge and support here is awesome! I'm looking forward to chatting with everyone and hopefully meeting some of you in person.
Kind regards,
Andy