Day: August 1, 2011

As forecast, it’s been a lovely warm day today. It didn’t look as though it was going to be because it started out rather dull, but when the cloud burnt off it became a bit of a minor scorcher. I had an important email to write this morning so when I’d done that and had some lunch, I thought I’d do the last remaining little job leaving the pod repaint as the next task. I had noticed that although the rudder pedals themselves were undamaged in the accident, the base plate on which they and the heel brake lever are mounted had suffered a little split on the pilot’s side. It wasn’t too serious and hadn’t even gone right through, but I decided that as the weather was so good, I might as well take the chance to repair it.

It’s a joy doing this sort of work in conditions like these. To start off with, I gouged the split out to make it a bit wider and deeper than it actually was and filled it with epoxy resin, which cured in double quick time. Then I skimmed a little fibreglass resin over the surface which also went off like lightning! Then some primer followed by some top coat and the job was done, in no time at all really 🙂

So all I need to do now is give it a rub over with T-Cut tomorrow when it’s had a chance to harden and that will be that. Not bad, I’m pleased with the way it’s come up and it will make the repair look little different to the way MYRO was before the accident. I made a list earlier today of the bolts etc that I need to order from P & M to replace the ones that were damaged and I’ll phone the order through tomorrow. I’ll then be nicely placed to move forward this week-end and who knows, I might even have the airframe repairs completed at the end of it with just the pod and screen to finish and fit.

And the cherry on the cake is that Ken goes on holiday for a few weeks shortly and wants to fly the X’air tomorrow as the weather forecast is so good. I suppose I’ll just have to make time for it 😉