I borrowed
a friend's flatbed trailer to move the fuselage to the airport. Both wings went (one
at a time) in the bed of my compact pickup. I was pretty nervous moving the plane -
we had to go over a small 'mountain' pass - but the move was uneventful.
My
borrowed hanger is way bigger than necessary for a Zodiac. Rent at Scappoose, OR is
$120/month. Scappoose is pretty ideal for test flying a plane - the runway is 150ft
wide x 4000 ft long, and surrounded (for the most part) by farmer's fields.
I spent
probably four hours taxiing around the airport. I was very happy with the plane's
ground handling, it is much better than the Taylorcraft I'd been flying.
After a
several pretty uneventful hops on the runway I decided to go for it. For my first
flight I kept with Zenith's recommendation and climbed to around 2500 ft circling the
airport, pulled the power back and performed a stall, and then returned to land. The
total flight was maybe 15 minutes long, after which it took probably four hours for my
adrenaline level to return to normal.
And the view from the inside looking out over Sauvie Island and the Columbia
River, at probably 1000 ft.
Coming
in for a landing...
Oil
temp was too hot so I cut away more of the cowling around the muffler, and added a slit at
the end of the oil pan. (The Stratus engine doesn't normaly use an oil cooler, just
airflow over the pan.)
This is what
the distributor drive gear on the crankshaft looked like after the distributor shaft
locked up. Fortunately this happened on the ground. I now have a new rebuilt
distributor and a new gear, and the engine seems to be doing fine.