July 2 was the moment the first maintenance phase paid off. The airplane was back in the air, the leak chase had at least narrowed, and I could finally get back to the business of learning what N22UP was like as a Phase 1 airplane instead of just a newly assembled project with a squawk list.

July 2: back in the system

The July 2 return flight was only an hour, but it was a big hour. This was not just a confidence lap after wrenching. It was the first flight after the airplane’s early problems had been addressed, and it immediately started producing cleaner data.

One of the most useful subplots that day was the autopilot checkout. I had already done the ground configuration work, so this flight became the first real in-air opportunity to see how heading hold, altitude hold, and navigation capture behaved in the airplane I had actually built. The good news was that it all looked reassuringly ordinary. In Phase 1, ordinary is a compliment.

N22UP on the July 2 return-to-flight day after the first maintenance pause.

The engine data from that flight also showed why the maintenance pause had been worth taking. Maximum CHT was down to about 353°F, with a spread of roughly 35 degrees, and the trend line was moving the right way. The airplane had not merely returned to service. It had returned with a clearer story.

Then life interrupted, but not the program

The next visible beat in the photo record is July 11 to 12, after a caving vacation. I like that detail because it makes this period feel honest. Phase 1 did not happen in a laboratory. It happened in normal life, where travel, weather, maintenance, and free time all compete with the test plan.

What mattered is that the airplane resumed cleanly. By July 12 I was back in the cockpit, and the flying no longer felt like a series of isolated milestones. It was starting to feel like a working program again.

Cockpit view from the July return-to-flying period as Phase 1 settled into a rhythm again.

July 14 to 15: the airplane becomes routine enough to work hard

Mid-July is where the pace changed. July 14 brought two flights. July 15 brought three. That kind of cluster tells you something important about the state of the airplane: it was no longer demanding all of my attention simply to be trusted.

It was still very much in break-in. It was still teaching me things. But it had become ordinary enough that I could stack flights in a single day and go after specific questions rather than re-proving the basics every time.

That is when the engine-cooling trend starts to become one of the quiet stars of the whole month. The July 2 flight showed 353°F max CHT. By July 16 and 17, the airplane was repeatedly showing maxima in the low-to-mid 330s. That does not mean every single reading was perfect, or that every sensor story was boring. It means the broader cooling picture looked like a healthy engine settling in.

July 16: pattern work and confidence

July 16 stands out because the flying became less about one dramatic test point and more about operational confidence. Four landings in a Phase 1 window is not glamorous data, but it is useful data. Pattern work is where a lot of real trust gets built.

If I had to pick one feeling for this stretch, it would be this: the airplane was no longer proving it could fly. It was proving it could be used.

Golden-hour July Phase 1 flying as N22UP settled into a more confident operational rhythm.

What the July log changed

This stretch from July 2 through July 18 is easy to underrate because it does not contain a single iconic headline like first flight or Phase 1 completion. But in some ways it is the most revealing part of the whole story.

During these fifteen flights:

  • The engine showed a clear break-in cooling trend.
  • The airplane handled repeated short missions without drama.
  • The autopilot looked healthy in the air.
  • Pattern work and ordinary flying built confidence.
  • The test program reached the point where more specialized work made sense.

That last point matters most. By the end of this stretch, N22UP was ready for the flights that would produce the numbers I actually needed: the deeper stall work, the airspeed calibration, and the climb-testing series that followed later in July.

This is why I think of the July flying log as the bridge between Maintenance Phase 1: The Tear-Down List and the more targeted test-card posts like Airspeed Calibration: The 4-Leg GPS Method. It is the chapter where the airplane stopped feeling freshly repaired and started feeling ready.