In today's episode - introducing 80* coolant from the heater core loop back into the cooling system lowers your coolant temps!

People have been knocking PM for spending so much time working the kinks out of the air conditioning system and not having a testing plan. Now you see he has been planning ahead. You need a fully functioning A/C system when your creation requires the uses of cabin heat when the OAT is 85°F.
What a complete goat rope.

90 seconds of max power run time until temperatures get out of hand. 30 seconds to airborne. This thing better cool down once airborne or the pig is going to have some great climb performance when he has to pull it back to 150 hp.

He needs to either fly it or get a test pilot. All these ground effect flights are unnecessary risk. Lots can go wrong close to the ground.

if it was me I would want to climb above parachute altitude so if it all goes bad I can bail. I would not want to be close to the ground in this plane. or at least have the altitude to figure out how to save the plane if it gets crazy. Not sure why he thinks ground effect and pattern altitude is a safe place.

Which brings up a good question, Does Peter have a parachute and if so does he know how to use it? Maybe thats why he just wants to fly in ground effect, any higher and he is dead if it goes bad.

Mike

My old farm truck going down the highway with a trailer popped a radiator cap. I also turned the heat on to get home.

These are totally normal operations when operating a 25 year old truck with 5 tons behind it.

same for an airplane!

its what I used to do in my 1980s Terrell in the 100 degree summer

Any airplane doing 100+ mph 10 ft above a runway is perfectly capable of killing or seriously injuring the pilot.

New video up.

I think that I know why it seems so slow accelerating. The engine is just to make noise. It looks like he's actually pedaling it.

3000' ground roll before airborne today...pedal harder?

Seems a bit odd to need that much aileron trim for a 5 gallon fuel imbalance...that seems pretty substantial. That stick shake once airborne seems a bit interesting as well (12:40).

Ok, I watched the end of this one (thanks for the time reference, Mike; no way I'm losing 14 minutes to this thing). I have a question: what does this ground effect piddling accomplish? Rather, what does he want you to think it accomplishes?

I feel like I'm on the street, watching some guy standing on a 20th story ledge. Is he going to jump? Hopefully, someone loves him enough to talk him into coming back inside. If he jumps, it'll only feel like flying for a moment.

Seems like mostly for familiarization and comfort more than a prescribed testing plan. Luckily, it seems like he's done doing it... What's next, tbd...

He thinks the ground effect flights have established that the aircraft is stable in all three axes.

I don't think that's stick shake. I think it's hand shake.

I don't think that's stick shake. I think it's hand shake.

Does anyone know if PM has the engine at full throttle for the entire ground run up to the point of rotation? I’m asking because it seems that the rate of acceleration starts to really taper off after ~ 70kts. If full power acceleration is dropping off that much, that soon, his straight and level max is going to be about 150kts. Of course, since he’ll have to throttle back after 90 seconds to keep the engine from melting, maybe 110kts is a more realistic number.