Pirep: Carbon Cub SS #115

[Warren Aircraft LLC]

We got off to a great start out of Yakima but only made it to La Grande, Oregon. The pass was covered by clouds and low visibility so we spent the night.

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Monday we headed out about noon and as we passed over Baker Oregon we saw the pass was covered by low clouds and visibility. I pulled up the map on the Garmin GDU375 while Jim looked on the sectional and we decided to look at a route down the Powder River and over the Brownlee Reservoir. We found the weather acceptable and the ride comfortable so we followed the reservoir down the Snake River and out to fuel stop in Nampa.

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Next stop was Twin Falls for the night.

Next day departed Twin Falls for the Salt Lake City area and south around weather. The weather had other plans the snow hill pass had low clouds again using the GDU375 we looked for an alternate route and headed the lower terrain to the southwest towards the Salt Lake. Once again we were closed down due to lower than forecast weather in the area. We returned to Burley.
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As the Ogden weather improved we attempted to head over Salt Lake again, the visibilty was too low again so we returned to Burley and spent the night.
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The following day we waited until approximately 3pm for the weather to improve enough to depart the Burley area and with the forecast to remain the same and snow in the Salt Lake area we elected to go south over Wells Nevada.
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We refueled in Wells Nevada and arrived in Ely Nevada just before dark.

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We planned an early morning departure but, woke up t o frost on the airplane. We departed around 10am local and had to head further south around ground fog. We headed south east to Kanab Utah for fuel.
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Finally headed east to Farmington for fuel and planned to stay in Las Vegas New Mexico for the evening. Las Vegas was closed with an after hour fuel phone number that was not a working number so we headed south to Santa Rosa New Mexico and landed at dark.
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The last day we went to Graham Texas with a fuel stop in Plainview Texas.
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Finaly on home to Hidden Valley Airpark.

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The long way home but what a great airplane to do it in.

The Carbon Cub SS:

The Cabin:

The cabin is comfortable and roomy in the front and back.
The new winterization kit worked well in the front and I was comfortable in a long sleeve shirt and pull over.
The rear seat after an hour or so will get a little chill from a draft coming up the back. Dress warm in the back seat. I wore jeans, long underwear and a light powder snowmobile jacket in oat’s from 28 to 35 degree F and was comfortable.

Flight controls:
The aircraft was rigged exceptionally well. Trim from full fuel to 7 gal in the tanks is a non event. No continually trimming, the airplane is very stable.

Power:
While I am a power guy and there could always be more. There obviously is plenty of power from sea level to 9500 msl. I never felt like I had to work to climb with a fully loaded airplane. On the contrary I felt like anywhere, anytime I needed to climb I would simply shove the throttle forward. The Cht's ran in the 390's on the back two cylinders at cruise and 415 in the climb.

Brakes:
The wheel brakes seemed week at first. I called Stan and asked if the brake break in procedure had been done. Stan did not think it had so I received the procedure from Becky and accomplished it in La Grande while waiting on the weather. This procedure helped but, I still felt I needed more authority to break the tail wheel out. Once I landed at home, I added more fluid to 2/3rd’s of the reservoir and adjusted my brake pedals. I now have plenty brake authority to break the tail wheel steering even with 29” tires.

Sound System:

At first I was a little disappointed with the sound of the XM radio. I played with a combination of the volume controls (The XM radio volume on the GDU375, the PSE 3000, and the volume controls on the Bose head set). I found that if you run a low volume on the Bose and use a high volume setting on the XM you will get some distortion. If you turn the volume controls up on the Bose headsets, with a low to medium volume on the intercom, and modulates the XM volume it clears up considerably.

I do think there is a little room for improvement for clarity on this system. I am going to compare to another PSE / Bose system I have in another airplane.

The executive panel:
What a way to spoil yourself rotten. The tools you have at your fingertips will make the 737-700 I fly for my day job look antiquated.

Current up to date weather, airport information, airspace, terrain features and the ability to check terrain feature heights, and airspace altitude with a simple pointer and joystick.

The XM weather is phenomenal.

The Dynon is loaded with engine and flight management information. Everything is neat and easy to read, from EGT’s, CHT’s, Fuel flow, fuel computer, to outside air temperature to carb heat temp gauge to the obvious basic flight information.

Not to mention the in-flight entertainment the XM radio is very relaxing on long trips.

All in all a pleasant experience getting N102WA home. The weather was the only minor stress in the trip. Any less of an aircraft and this trip would have been no fun at all. The Carbon Cub made it a fun trip.

[Norm]

Great write up, thanks! I noticed that you always seemed to average about 100 (statue?) MPH on your legs. Cubs are Cubs ... but about what fuel burn at those speeds? It's really nice to be able to download the trip from the panel like you did.

[Warren Aircraft LLC]

Hi Norm, We averaged 7.5 gph, running a little rich to keep the CHTs under 400 during the firsh 50 hours.

It is nice to have the bread crumbs to see where you been