Engine break-in & a flight to Sarasota FL (SRQ)...

I had great opportunities to put some hours on the new engine so that it would be broken in properly before heading off to Lake Havasu.  We wanted at least 50 hrs of time and two oil changes in that time while flying with mineral oil in the engine and to ensure that oil usage had stablized.


Test flight over the Iowa River and
Iowa City by the power plant.

We had a few gremlins that Josh needed to chase down after the installation.  They included the tach calibration (required sending it to Horizon for recalibration), the decreased oil pressure with leaning (required 5 test flights and finally resetting the fluid hoses entering/leaving the oil cooler), recalibrating the oil pressure gauge, and finally sending off the fuel flow meter to JPI for a warranty fix. We flew about 10 hrs in the pattern resolving everything but the fuel flow monitor issue, which was working intermittently.


First off-field flight with the new
engine - heading to UCY.

Mar 28 - Immediately after Josh finished flushing out our gremlins and we were all confident that the plane was safe to fly, I launched for a flight to Sarasota FL to visit family and for a couple days at Sun N Fun. It was a "late" start at 6:30 pm, but it was good to get one leg on the trip done. Nice weather. Stopped in Everett-Stewart Regional (UCY; Union City TN) for the night after flying for about 2.5 hrs - all systems were working great, and the plane seemed to have more power and speed for sure.  UCY was a great stop: 24-hr access with a key code and a nice comfy pilot's lounge that I decided to bunk out in. Great people showed up to work the next AM, and I took a crew car in to town for breakfast before launching for SRQ.
Mar 29 - Leg 2 to Bainbridge GA (BGE) for fuel, and I charged on to SRQ. For all legs, I was flying full throttle, full prop and staying at 5000 ft for the engine break-in, making sure the cylinders were running hot. For Leg 3, I noted in my instrument flight plan that I was doing an engine break-in and that I wanted to stay close to land once I got down to FL. Air Traffic Control (ATC) did a great job vectoring me along hugging the FL coast. Very helpful. It was a beautifly flight, and having broken the trip up over 2 days, it's the first time that I've made this leg flying down there in daylight hours - about 5.5 hrs flying time for these 2 legs.

The view as I flew by St. Petersburg airport (PIE) - PIE from the sky on the way to Sarasota FL.

 Mar 30 - Apr 3: Visited for a few days with my sister and her kids, my 3 brothers down there and their families, and said my final farewell to my brother-in-law, Larry, at his memorial service. It was a bittersweet part of this journey, and he is missed by all. The 2 days at Sun N Fun were just that - sun and fun AND sharing the aviation pleasures with my brother and nephew, as well as seeing pilot buddies too. And of course, the daily airshows...

Apr 3 - Launched for home from SRQ with the goal of making the trip in a long day of flying. Flew from Sarasota to Alexander City AL (ALX) to Farmington MO (FAM) - great weather with just a few clouds to blow holes in. The last leg was more challenging with having to deviate around some storms to fly FAM - COU (Columbia MO) - OTM (Ottumwa IA) - Iowa City. It was great IFR (instrument) weather to fly in and the rain washed off some bugs - always a good thing. 

The round trip IOW-SRQ-IOW racked up 17.8 hrs. With the 10 hrs of test flights, it was time for the first oil change already! All systems were doing great, only needed to add about 1 quart of oil - looking good.