Post by longezdreamer on Nov 28, 2018 18:34:28 GMT
I ventured out for my first XC in the VSL EZ today, an hour up the west coast of Florida from KVNC Venice, to KCLW Clearwater Muni. Flying with the Garmin530 was familiar, but everything else felt like my first solos.
It was really cool to see the sun and shadows move across the panel as I flew and turned. A strong feeling of realism hit me at one point. Just amazing. I've put in 80 hours of 2D panel LongEz flying this year, and did not know what I was missing.
I had some difficulty with leaning the mixture. I couldn't see the change in the small rpm gauge very well, nor distinguish the change by the engine sound.
Another difficulty I had came from not familiarizing myself to quickly recognize gear up vs gear down from the handle position. When I started trimming for cruise, my fuel flow was much higher than expected, and cruise speed lower than expected. At first I thought I just needed to lean out, but eventually figured out that I had forgotten to raise the gear on climb out.
I need to get used to reading the fuel gauges. Lacking easily seen 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 ... markings, requires me to think in gallons and gallons per hour, which is probably better to do anyway. It was easy enough to see the differences in fuel levels between tanks to remember to switch tanks along the way.
I was hesitant to purchase the VSL EZ. It feels a bit like I am betraying "my EZ." I invested many hours in plane-maker with "my EZ", redesigning the instrumentation and panel layout to make it v11 compliant, and make it easier to pilot. Doing this helped create the "I built it" attachment associated with Experimental planes like a LongEZ. I also redid the paint, added my N0TEZ registration to the rudder winglets and the panel inside, and set the ATC tail num field so that ATC uses my N0TEZ registration.
I am very pleased with "my new EZ". It is obvious that a lot of thought, and effort went into creating the VSL LongEZ. The advantages of this plane over my old 2D panel EZ are many and huge. It flies great, looks great, and was at a great price. Thank you to @jetmanhuss. If you ever get to south Florida, let me buy dinner and you can tell me all about creating this beauty.
It was really cool to see the sun and shadows move across the panel as I flew and turned. A strong feeling of realism hit me at one point. Just amazing. I've put in 80 hours of 2D panel LongEz flying this year, and did not know what I was missing.
I had some difficulty with leaning the mixture. I couldn't see the change in the small rpm gauge very well, nor distinguish the change by the engine sound.
Another difficulty I had came from not familiarizing myself to quickly recognize gear up vs gear down from the handle position. When I started trimming for cruise, my fuel flow was much higher than expected, and cruise speed lower than expected. At first I thought I just needed to lean out, but eventually figured out that I had forgotten to raise the gear on climb out.
I need to get used to reading the fuel gauges. Lacking easily seen 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 ... markings, requires me to think in gallons and gallons per hour, which is probably better to do anyway. It was easy enough to see the differences in fuel levels between tanks to remember to switch tanks along the way.
I was hesitant to purchase the VSL EZ. It feels a bit like I am betraying "my EZ." I invested many hours in plane-maker with "my EZ", redesigning the instrumentation and panel layout to make it v11 compliant, and make it easier to pilot. Doing this helped create the "I built it" attachment associated with Experimental planes like a LongEZ. I also redid the paint, added my N0TEZ registration to the rudder winglets and the panel inside, and set the ATC tail num field so that ATC uses my N0TEZ registration.
I am very pleased with "my new EZ". It is obvious that a lot of thought, and effort went into creating the VSL LongEZ. The advantages of this plane over my old 2D panel EZ are many and huge. It flies great, looks great, and was at a great price. Thank you to @jetmanhuss. If you ever get to south Florida, let me buy dinner and you can tell me all about creating this beauty.
