Month: October 2022

This is the video of my first flight in 24ZN, my X-air, after it had given me a fright in the form of a serious drop in engine power right after take off. I’d surmised that the problem was fuel-related and had gone over the whole fuel system, replacing almost all of it. Now was the time to see if I’d cured the problem.

As the video shows, everything went fine for almost the whole flight, except the engine decided to give me another scare about half-way through at a point the furthest away from Malbec, forcing me to decide what I should do.

On my way back down to my caravan after checking my mailbox this morning I spotted a flash of colour on top of my little apple tree that my friends gave me as a birthday gift nearly two years ago and which I planted on my land just after I arrived here. When I went to investigate the cause I could hardly believe what I saw because this is what it was.

The colour was a single little piece of blossom and just below it were two tiny baby apples. I could hardly believe it because although we’ve been enjoying a balmy period with temperatures in the mid to upper 20s degrees C, relatively speaking, the summer is hardly over and spring is still a long way away.

My guess is that the poor little tree has become confused after the period right at the beginning of the summer when temperatures were up in the mid-40s and thinks that with the temperature dip in between, now it must be spring.

Sadly, I don’t give much chance that either the blossom or the baby apples will survive, but it’s still a welcome reminder that while around us we see confusion and conflict, Mother Nature still carries on regardless and tries her best to keep delivering her gifts no matter what. And long may she continue doing so.

At long last, today I managed to get around to fixing my Savannah’s brakes. The problem was that, as happened once before, all of the hydraulic fluid in the system was lost, possibly by boiling, I don’t know, during the very hot period we had during the summer when temperatures were getting up to 45 degrees Celsius and beyond.

Things were made worse when I went to unscrew the bleed nipples to replace the lost fluid and both of them broke off. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because when I contacted ICP in Italy after I couldn’t make contact with ULMs Les Noyers (the agent in France, they were tied up with organising their presence at Blois, France’s main ULM show), I found out that the DOT 4 fluid that I’d been using was expressly forbidden and that a mineral oil, a type of car automatic gearbox fluid had to be used instead.

In the event I obtained both the parts I needed and some of the fluid but then my life was taken over by another problem, namely building my new computer. After various setbacks, that was eventually completed several days ago and I’ve been using it with great success in the role that I intended for it, so I was very pleased about that. But today’s plan was to tackle the brake problem.

It doesn’t sound so bad. There’s a bleed nipple on each brake calliper and a small sealing screw on the top of each of the toe brake cylinders in the cockpit. All you need to do is crack the sealing screw, attach a pressure oil can full of fluid to the appropriate bleed nipple with rubber tube, crack the nipple and slowly pump fluid into the system from the bottom until it emerges from the sealing screw on top of the brake cylinder. So far so good.

But it isn’t quite that easy. Firstly, it has the potential to be very messy, made worse by the fact that the fluid is for some reason very slippery. So when you’re filling the oil can it’s easy (a) to overfill it and dribble some onto the can itself, the fluid container and the floor when you pour some back and (b) drop or tip the oil can over when you try to screw the top back onto it while trying to avoid doing exactly that.

The other thing is that if you’re a bit over-enthusiastic and pump a bit more pressure than the system can cope with at that precise moment, the rubber tube can detach from the bleed nipple spraying a jet of fluid all around, onto the side and underneath of the aircraft, the floor and your legs, the latter being a bit uncomfortable if you’re wearing shorts as I was today.

But I got the job done. I checked the brakes after one refill and they were still definitely spongey, especially the right one, so I did them again. This time the results were much better and I was able to do a longer test by taxying down Malbec’s runway and back up again. But I’m still not completely happy.

My Savannah’s brakes have never been that good. OK, but not THAT good. I can’t really tell if they’re now better with the new fluid than they were before, but I’m still not that impressed. And it looks as though the seals on the top of each toe brake cylinder through which the operating rods pass may both be slightly letting fluid by.

ICP told me that DOT 4 fluid might have attacked the system seals but I don’t think that that’s the reason. I think that it’s just down to system old age and probably both of the toe brake cylinders are really due for renewal. In fact, as the brakes are not performing that well, it would probably be worth taking a good look at the brake pads and more than that, with the amount of work involved in stripping the system and the importance of having good brakes, it would undoubtedly be worth overhauling the complete system.

So that’s my next aim. If I keep an eye on the amount of fluid seeping past the top seals, the Savannah will be safe to fly. However, I think I now need to get the parts list out again and drop another email to ULMs Les Noyers. As Del Boy would say, you know it makes sense, Rodders 😉

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’ve decided to build a new, faster, more powerful computer. My old system, on which I’m typing this, is going on for 10 years old, which is becoming quite ancient in computer terms, and I’m finding that it isn’t now really up to the job of making videos in the quantity and manner that I wish to. So I decided to bite the bullet and shell out a considerable sum to build a new machine that would more than meet my needs, probably for as long as I’ll be computing!

Up to now I’ve favoured AMD processors, mainly for budgetary reasons, but in my opinion Intel have now jumped so far ahead in terms of performance that it would be foolish not to go for one of their processors even though they are more expensive. So I decided on an Intel Core i5-12600kf which was launched in quarter 4 of 2021 and although not cheap should more than do the job I want it to. Then, having made that choice, the next step was to choose a motherboard to mount it and all of the other peripherals that make up a working machine on and I chose a MSI Pro Z690-A which looked to be ideal.

I then had to source a suitable cabinet, power supply, memory, cooling system and all of the other stuff to make up the complete machine. This Intel processor is described as 12th generation and my first shock was to find that since I built my last computer everything has changed, so much so that I can’t use anything, nothing at all, from my old machine. So out kept coming my bank card as I had to keep sourcing new components, until at last I had everything that I needed to start the build.

I should add that this actually took several weeks because of some suppliers’ delivery times and also because some of the less scrutible ones were happy to bill me and then let me know after a delay of several days, sometimes over a week and only when I chased them, that they didn’t have the item(s) I needed in stock and that they needed several more weeks to complete the order. This practice seems to be very prevalent in France and I regard it as both appalling and unacceptable.

So then I could get down to building the machine and little did I know that that was when my real nightmares would begin. The first thing I found was that the reduced-price power supply that I’d sourced via Amazon Warehouse was completely dead and wouldn’t power up at all. I decided that in order to minimise the further delay I’d return it to Amazon and order a replacement so I could press on with the build before receiving the refund which I’m still waiting for.

The replacement when it arrived worked great so I could continue. But then there was yet another disaster, this one more more serious. After assembling the complete machine, it powered up but wouldn’t boot (ie the system wouldn’t start running). I knew that I’d done everything correctly and after carrying out detailed checks and diagnostics, it came down to it being either a memory or, more seriously, a motherboard problem.

The motherboard installation instructions say that a single stick of memory should be inserted in memory bay A2 (don’t worry what that means) and if two sticks are inserted, they should be in bays A2 and B2. Simple enough. However, to cut a long and very painful story short, it transpired that the system booted if a single stick was inserted, contrary to instructions, in bay B2 but if bay A2 was used at any time it would prevent the machine from running.

Advice I received on the MSI support forum said that this might happen if the processor had been mishandled when inserting it into its socket on the motherboard and some minute connection pins had been bent. However, I’m not that cack-handed and have been building computers for getting on for 20 years and I knew that that wasn’t the case, as confirmed by checking the socket visually with a bright light and a magnifying glass.

So the only conclusion I could come to is that the motherboard is showing a fault on memory bay A2, which is pretty fundamental. I sourced it through Amazon.de but I’ve already arranged for it to be returned, to Slovakia for goodness sake, which will cost an arm and a leg of which Amazon say they will only reimburse 10€, the difference (around 8€ I think) being deducted from the amount of my refund. Plus, of course, it has also meant that all the work I’ve done so far has been wasted as the complete machine has had to be torn back down.

In the meantime in order to continue with the build while I’m waiting for my refund from Amazon, I’ve had to source and pay for another replacement, but that still isn’t where the nightmare ends. Because the Euro has collapsed against the Dollar and I purchased my original motherboard several weeks ago, the replacement has cost me nearly 25% more than I originally paid. I’ve built quite a few computers, even for a short time supplying them through my old UK company to small businesses, but never, ever have I had an experience like this one.