A good day

We had heavy rain last night and it was forecast to be wet all day today. So not a good one for working outside, but I didn’t have to as a few days ago I spotted a wooden prop for sale on Le Bon Coin and today I arranged to go and see it. As it was at Carcans in the Gironde, one of the small airfields we flew into last year during our west coast tour, I knew that it would take most of the day, so it was a good day to make the trip.

It turned out to be as good as the seller said it was in his advertisement so I ended up buying it. It actually came off an old Weedhopper with a 532 engine, the precursor to the 582 which is on my X-Air, so is not absolutely ideal for my Weedhopper’s 503. But it’s very, very close indeed. My calculations show that it will be pretty much perfect if I shave a mere 12mm off each tip.

I tried it on the Weed when I got home and it looked great. Because I’m using MYRO’s old engine I can also use its specially tailored engine cover that includes a pair of zipped prop blade covers. As it was originally made for a UK AX3 the blade covers were made to take an old GSC wooden prop. As such, they go onto the prop that I’ve just bought but are a tad too short, so if I shorten the blades by the amount that I’ve mentioned, the cover will be spot on too.

No photographs today but I’ll share some together with my prop calculations tomorrow. And I’ll also be able to finish the stator install. I popped the flywheel off the engine when I got back this afternoon and it looks as though in my haste to reassemble the engine yesterday evening, the stator carrier plate hasn’t properly seated in its housing and the flywheel is fouling it when its securing nut is tightened up. If so, it’ll be a quick job to fix, but I can’t confirm that until I can get my hands on it again in the morning.

So hopefully it’ll be possible to put a few things to bed tomorrow, which I’m pleased to say is forecast to be warm and sunny again 😉