17th. June 2007 11:10am

Today  G-LEAH first took to the air for the first time.

The test pilot was John Brownlow, a man with a great deal of experience in test flying and aviation in general. The day started with my wife, my  son and I arriving at the airfield around 9 am. We prepared the plane and gave it a final clean up ready for the big day.

I had arranged with the staff at Andrewsfield to give us the stand in front of the club house for the day so that we did not have keep trekking down to the far end of the airfield with fuel etc. That meant that we were very close to where our car was parked and all of the bits and pieces that we had bought along with us. I spent probably an hour or so with John going over the plane including inspecting under the cowling and doing the outside checks. We then spent more time sitting in the cockpit going over the controls and switches explaining each and every  function in detail. Next we  did a dummy run through   the checklists and I could tell that John had done his homework by studying the pilot notes.

It was finally time for me to get out let John get on with the job in hand. From here on in I started to feel a little nervous, not that I was worried about the plane, I was happy that it was correctly assembled and ready to go, it was insured so there was no worry there. My fear was that someone else was taking the risk of that first flight and what would I feel like if something did go wrong, my guilt would be intense. Adam had set up the video camera outside of the club house, Jackie was in charge of the still camera and I had the hand portable radio to monitor the communications. I waited by the plane while John started the engine and allowed G-LEAH to warm up. I was pacing around beside the plane not knowing what to do with myself, I suddenly realised things were now in the hands of someone else and there was little else I could do.

I walked back to the club house to stand with the rest of the spectators which had grown in number since we arrived. I stood and watched the plane from a distance for what seemed like an eternity but was probably just a few minutes while John convinced himself that all was well. Then we heard his call to line up and we started the camera rolling. The aircraft accelerated up 27R and got airborne just before he reached us. He momentarily held the plane down to gain some airspeed and then climbed away at a fair rate. I heard Adam give a loud cheer and there were a few claps behind me. I gave a sigh of relief which then turned into a broad smile at the realisation that what I had built was actually flying.

Once airborne John continued the climb into the overhead and asked air traffic to let me know that I had a " nice aeroplane"   which made me smile even more.  I followed the plane around the sky as John kept G-LEAH in the overhead towards the dead side at about 1500 feet. After around 20 minutes I heard him  call downwind and I prepared myself for the landing.

The end of the first flight was a real relief, and G-LEAH fly's as good as she looks.

We did a second flight that day with me as a passenger / observer another 50 minutes added on to the flying time from the total of five hours that is required by the LAA.

Ready for the second flight. We tested the undercarriage and performed stalls at all the flap settings, looked at the general handling and investigated the multiple alarms that the EIS/EFIS were generating. I had expected that this would happen and it is just a case of going through each one in turn and setting up the correct parameter values.

Monday was rained off.

Today has been a perfect day for the continuation of the test flights.

Unfortunately I was  too busy to take any pictures.

We have today completed another 1 hour 35 minutes. We started in the morning testing the undercarriage alarm which I had hoped I had fixed. I ended up disconnecting it and adding it to the snags list which we will work on next weekend, I think it's the Flap switch.

We then climbed to 3500 feet and calibrated the TruTrak autopilot, it was great fun watching the plane turn on to the 4 points of the compass on its own. We had to adjust the micro activity function to stop a small oscillation in the pitch servo but once adjusted it works a treat. Further tests were carried out on the Autopilot as per the LAA test schedule. We also did the air checks on the Radio for range which we did by calling Cambridge when we were overhead Colchester. Then it was the turn of the mode S transponder which we did by calling Wattisham. More flight parameters were also checked so they could be ticked of the list including T's, P's and RPM in the " Climb out" and " Cruise climb" . We also tested the go-round with max course pitch prop, full flap and 65kts and checked for a positive rate of climb which was successful.

Shame I had to go back to work for the rest of this week.

Today we spent most of the time adjusting the position of the stall warning device. I had taped the stall warner onto the leading edge of the Port wing with Duct Tape and it was a case of adjusting its vertical position downwards until we got a stall warning at a reasonable speed without it false triggering. This took 4 attempts before we got a warning at around 48 KIAS which is some 18 kts above the stall but gives me plenty of warning without being obtrusive. With the stall warning device sorted we spent some time setting up the EIS alarms until we had everything working to our satisfaction. With this work out of the way we were ready for the 2 hour endurance flight which would be on the next trip.

The Offical flight test.

We have been trying to get a gap in the weather to finish the test flying but we have had continual rain and high winds, and some nine days had passed before the weather was good enough to do the official flight test..

We started early and after checking out the plane, refueling and going through a pre-flight briefing on the tasks for this trip, we got airbourne at 10:05.

The flight plan took us from Andrewsfield south to Hanningfield reservoir then east tracking to Clacton VOR which is on the East coast. I had entered the flight plan into the GNS430 and  it was my first chance to test it in flight, what a great piece of kit!

From Clacton it was north west to Wattisham before turning west and heading towards Cambridge. We took the opportunity to talk to the US airbase at Lakenheath which allowed us to do the Mode " S" transponder test and also test the radio for range. Both the radio and transponder worked very well which I am so pleased about. I hated the thought of having poor communications in G-LEAH.

Lakenheath passed us onto Cambridge which gave us  clearance to turn overhead at 2500 ft. as we headed for the VRP at Haverhill we descended to 1200 ft to keep below London Stansteads zone. From Haverhill we turned due south back towards Andrewsfield but then headed east at Braintree towards our local flying area near the large Aberton reservoir.

We had to test that the engine RPM in the dive (with the throttle closed) and the speed at VNE did not exceed 5800 RPM, we performed the test which gave us the result of 4900 RPM at 150 KIAS, well inside the max allowed.

More stalling, with and without flaps and gear. then back to Andrewsfield for refreshments and landed at 12:15, a total flight time of 2 hours 10 minutes.

I forgot to mention that also during the flight we performed the rate of climb tests.  After descending to 500ft over open countryside we commenced the test. From 500ft we timed the ascent to 1500 ft using 65 KIAS in the climb. The climb came in at 1200ft per minute which seems pretty good to me for the aircraft at max all up weight.

After something to eat and drink we took to the circuit to complete the 5 remaining landings which we completed in 35 minutes.

With the landings done, the test flying was complete so G-LEAH is now grounded until the " Permit To Fly" arrives. I can see the next few weeks are going to drag but there is nothing else to do but wait.

John Brownlow did an excellent job and if your looking for a test pilot I doubt that you could do better. Many thanks John.