Fun Stuff: First "flight of two" air-to-air pics.

I finally had the pleasure of sharing the skies on a 4-hour cross-country with my good friend who built an RV-9A and also donated 469 hours of his time to help build my plane over the 4 years and 8 months it took to arrive at first flight.  I gave his passenger a GoPro HERO6 Black so he could grab some videos of my bird in flight.

I'll worry about cleaning the belly when it's time for paint.  This is with about 125 hours on the airframe.

Here's his plane, taken with my GoPro HERO5 Session by my passenger whilst I help ensure our planes don't get too close.

Since my plane isn't painted yet, it's a bit shiny.  My friend was flying a few miles to my right and was constantly getting flashed by my plane in the sun.  He said I was a disco ball.

Operational: POH and checklist behind-the-seat pocket.

My POH is extensive and contains a lot of information that can be useful during flight.  However, it can be really hard to reach back into the baggage area to grab it when I'm in the air.  So I wanted to put the POH, checklist and other avionics manuals behind the passenger seat.  This would let me more easily reach around and grab what I need without much undue effort.

Thus, I bought some polypropylene, Velcro binder pockets and attached one to the rear of the passenger seat.  Now it's as easy as reaching behind, flipping up the cover and grabbing what I need.  In the picture below, you can also see the

• Red polypropylene, Velcro binder pocket behind the seat with the POH, checklists and other manuals.
• Zipper binder pocket affixed to the side of the baggage area on the right holding the operating limitations.
• My low-profile wheel chocks Velcro'd to the C-01438 Canopy Latch Torque Tube (hey, it's a convenient and out-of-the-way place to store them!).

This photo is taken from the baggage area, pointed forward at the base of the passenger seat.

Avionics: Screenshot pushbutton function.

I was exploring some of the settings on my GRT HXr EFISs and found that the analog inputs can be set to function as a screenshot trigger.  It turns out that one of the momentary push-button switches I had on the center of my panel was not useful (I had it wired to the GTX-330 transponder for a function that I had misunderstood, so the button was useless).  Thus, I've now rewired that push-button to function as a simultaneous screenshot trigger for both EFISs and changed the label with my label maker (this post details what I used for labels).

Level flight, dialed back.  Engine temperatures on left inset and ADS-B scope on right inset.

Steep turn.  Engine temperatures on left inset and ADS-B scope on right inset.

Vy climb.  Engine temperatures on left inset and ADS-B scope on right inset.

Engine/Map screen with GRT's map display.

Engine/Map screen with Seattle Avionics' geo-referenced VFR chart.  

You can see I deviated from the GPS track to go around the restricted space.

Seattle Avionics' geo-referenced VFR chart with altimeter and speed tapes and PFD left inset.

Operational: Light gun signal cheat sheet placard.

I keep forgetting the light gun signals and find myself relearning them prior to my flight reviews.  I figured it was time to put a cheat sheet in the plane.  Here's what I came up with using PowerPoint.  The background of the placard matches the interior paint color, similar to my fuse block legend.

Here's where I put it.  When I fly at night, I wear a headlamp in case I lose power and need to see my panel's steam gauges.  That will also let me read the placard at night too.