So the Skybolt was down for several weeks while I addressed a few issues that cropped up, as well as finally getting around to installing the smoke system in the airplane. Sorry about the rough start to the inflight video.. a couple of the cameras failed to start recording on the ground, and i wasn't going to spend a lot of time messing around while in close proximity to Don in the air. The smoke system is a Smoking Airplanes system. After several weeks of not flying the plane, my landing was a little less than stellar, she settled onto the runway a little fast and skipped a bit which extended my landing distance. While re-plumbing the pitot and static system, I built a simple manometer and calibrated the airspeed indicator which was reading about 8 mph fast, and which I had suspected, so I need to figure out the sweet speed at which to fly my final all over again. Once I got the airplane planted on the mains and put the tail down, I got a nasty shimmy again, so I have a little more work to do fine tuning the tailwheel/chain setup to get rid of that. I no longer question why the FAA gives that 40 hour requirement for the typical Phase 1.. it's all the little things.
