A satisfying day

The new Polini primer bulb arrived today for the Weedhopper. I think it should be called the Picollo Polini because it turned out to be the smallest primer bulb that I’ve ever seen! You couldn’t tell, of course, from the pictures on the internet but it is about half the size of the one it’s replacing, so a quarter of the volume! Here’s a shot of it after I’d fitted it.

I didn’t start the Weedhopper’s engine today but I did try the primer out and, oh well, I guess I’ll just have to get used to giving it a few more pumps before every flight!

I had another little job that I wanted to do on the Weedhopper today. Way back in 2011 before I came to France, one of the feet on MYRO’s panel got damaged in the landing incident when I was flipped over by the wind. I repaired it at the time as the following pics show.

MYRO’s panel is now being used in the Weedhopper, of course, and that repair has lasted all this time. However, I noticed a short time ago that it had snapped again, probably as a result of being stressed differently in a different aircraft and pod, so I did another, albeit rather poor, repair in-situ.

I realised a few days ago that that repair had failed again so did another yesterday using heavy duty 2-part epoxy compound that I hope will last forever. Today I went back to the repair and used the same epoxy soaked into fibreglass matting to add much needed strengthening to the rear surface and that I’m sure will do it.

Then onto the Savannah. I’m now on the final stretch of what has turned out to be a longer journey than I expected. When I replaced its screen a couple of years or so ago I also replaced the covering material on the top of its instrument panel. I couldn’t make up my mind what to use at the time and ended up buying two types, a foam backed leatherette that I eventually used, and a fuzzy black car-boot lining type of material.

The floor of the Savannah used to have some kind of covering which was removed before I acquired it and since redoing its panel top, I’ve always intended to use the left-over car-boot type material as interior carpet as it closely matches the material that’s used in the rest of the cabin.

So that’s what I also did today. I cut the pieces out that were needed and fixed them to the bare metal floor using two-sided carpet tape so they won’t move or lift and get under my feet, and here are some shots of the final result.

So I’m very pleased with today’s results which bring me close to finishing the work that was needed on both aircraft. I’ll need to finish rubbing down the Weedhopper’s panel repair and put some colour onto it and then it’ll be all ready to be readvertised. Hopefully now that summer seems to be about to start (temperatures up around the 30 degrees Celsius mark in the next few days) there will be a heightened level of interest from potential buyers.

The Savannah is all ready to go now. Depending on what I have to do over the next couple of days I may fly tomorrow, which is a national holiday in France, or Friday and see if I can do my planned radio and transponder checks with Bergerac. It’ll also be great to get back up into the air in it again, both aircraft actually, and get a few landings in. I’m looking forward to it very much 😉