Maiden Flight Today

[Dick B in KY]

Congratulations!!!! Having just done the same thing recently I know your feeling of excitement. Something you will not forget and a remarkable achievement. Welcome to the club.

Dick B

[Pilot4Life]

What an accomplishment indeed..."old guy" is a relative term...aged and wise perhaps! Congrats!

Hans...best wishes for tomorrow! We'll anxiously await photos and/or video from you as well.

[HighWing]

Jim,
Tango Tango looks geat Congratulations. I am interested in the heavy left wing. I still haven't trimmed mine out completely, but it is the same wing. Regarding the low fuel pressure, Most of us out there only have the round gauges so my suspecion is that if it flies, it is OK.

Hans, will be waiting for the report.

[Chewie]

Whoo Hoo!!! Beautiful, Jim! Good way to take advantage of this nice weather spell too.

Mark

[Danh]

Congratulations

[Floog]

Congrats, Jim! Who will be your first pax? Thanks for sharing that great landing.

Doug
SS7 almost ready for paint...

[jiott]

All the credit for the good landing goes to Stick & Rudder in Boise, in particular my instructor Preston Riley. I highly recommend them for your Kitfox transition training, or a complete Sport Pilot course as I did. When I got into my own Kitfox for the maiden flight it felt and flew just like the one I trained in at Boise. It is lighter and wants to descend and float somewhat longer without the instructor in the right seat. The full flap position on my kit is more aggressive than the SLSA at Boise which will take a little getting used to, but other than these few items they both fly the same. It took a huge amount of stress off the first flight.
Thanks again to Paul and Preston at Stick & Rudder.

Jim

[JohnB]

Congrats Jim! You give inspiration to those of us still building.
Your grass strip is beautiful, how long is it?

[jiott]

My strip is Sandy River, 03S, 2100' long with trees on on side and on both ends, but set back from the thresholds so they are not too intimidating. I admit not the best place for a maiden flight, but thats where I was. I did have an easy option of landing at another more wide open strip nearby, but everything felt so good that after two practice approaches and go-arounds I went ahead a landed at my own strip.

My ground crew buddy just posted another video on youtube of the maiden takeoff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA55teheEss

Jim

[jiott]

Today I readjusted the trim ballscrew to give about 1/2" more nose up travel at the leading edge of the horiz stab. Also I backed out the right lift strut rod end 1 full turn at the trailing edge to help bring down the right wing which wanted to ride a little high. I'll see how these two adjustments pan out on the next test flight. Will keep you posted, however the weather is getting dicy again.
This is really interesting and fun to be a test pilot and aircraft mechanic, to try to tweak an already good performing airplane to be even more perfect. I will be following the FAA AC 90-89A Phase I flight testing advisory circular for my test flights. In some ways it is too conservative for a well proven design like the Kitfox, but hey you need something to do while you're doing circles in your local area for 40 hours, and it makes you feel like a Chuck Yeager or something wringing out a brand new prototype Super X-1000 Mega Fighter.

Jim