She’s Alive!

Well, the title pretty much says it all. We were able to get the Lycoming pre-oiling procedure and first engine start in today. Oh, and second, and third. It is getting to be about bed time for me, so I will give some more details another time (probably when I get all the videos edited), but thought everyone might like to  know.

The engine started right up, in a few blades of the prop. Seemed to run well, though our run time was limited by keeping the CHTs from overheating. All engine indications seemed to be reasonable except for maybe the fuel flow. It was showing a fuel flow before engine start. That may be a ground or programming issue. So we will have to look into that. But most of the instrumentation appears to check out. The alternator is charging. I did do a “mag check” with the electronic ignitions and the drops were larger than I expected, but it still ran smooth. We will see if that improves as the engine clears out the preservative oils etc. I have some data from the G3X data logging that I can look at as well.  But without further ado, here is the iPhone video of the first engine start.

Here are some screen shots of the EFIS during the engine run.

Oh, and we got a few kills already too… I couldn’t believe how many bugs we had to clean off the prop.

Victory! Don’t think we will be needing to run the engine again until we get to the point of taxi-testing.

Since engine stuff is pretty much wrapped up for now, or at least until we get to the airport, we decided it was time to put the wings on so we can whittle away at the remainder of the airworthiness items remaining before we move to the hangar.