I am happy to report another CH650 inauguration as I took N987XL on it’s maiden flight last night at New Century Airport (IXD), Olathe, Kansas.  All went well as I made 3 wide orbits at pattern altitude before landing.  The airport is towered, so the only video I have is so far from the runway that you can’t even tell what kind of plane it is and not worth posting.  Besides, the grin on my face would have blocked the view, anyway.

 

My thanks go to all of you for so many posts to the site and especially to Roger at Zenith Aircraft for so patiently putting up with years of questions.  I hope to be beating more air molecules into submission soon.

 

John Richardson

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Good job.  What engine do u have in it ?

I have a jabiru 3300. I was equally concerned about CHTs as they were gaining on a long taxi and I was #3 for departure. I was glad they stayed in operating range during the climb out. I need to figure out why my alternator breaker popped before my next flight. Apparently I flew most of the time on battery power.

Congrats, John R.!

The Jab 3300's alternator only produces charging current above ~ 1900 rpm. So, if you have a long warm-up, long taxi, etc., you're running on battery all that time. When you finally get to take-off, if the battery is depleted somewhat, there may be an inrush of charging current when you go to full throttle. Although it's a "20 amp" alternator, supposedly it can produce up to about 32 amps or so.

I had the alternator breakered at 20 amps initially, and had no problems with an Odyssey PC680 battery (however, I have my own strip and no long taxi's, etc!). However, when I went to a small lithium battery, I had the same problems you did - the battery was too small in capacity, would get depleted, and then the breaker would pop after take-off. Also, lithium batteries have little internal resistance, so that aggravated the inrush of charging current further. Of course, the engine's ignition is magneto-driven, so lack of alternator or battery is no problem as far as keeping the engine going!

I found that my alternator wiring was actually good up to about 42 amps, so I increased the breaker to a 35A and got a larger LiFePO4 battery (EarthX ETX36D) that had similar capacity to my Odyssey and have had no more problems.

Congrats again and regards,

John

N750A

Congratulations.   Now the fun begins.

Way to go!

Congrats on 1st flight

  Congratulations John!!   Enjoy.

 Drop in at K50 (Cook Field - Rose Hill, KS)  if you get down this way.

Tim

Thanks all. And to John Austin for the better understanding of my alternator system. I didn't realize it was not charging until the RPMs were up. I'll also check if my 5 amp breaker is going to an exciter field of the regulator or inline with my Odessey battery power. John Richardson

Congrats from Idaho!

Blue skys ahead

Mack

Once again-good job and have lots of good flying.  Looks like goo fun.

Does anybody know what speed a CH- 650 will give with a Continental ?

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