About time!

I drove to Le Bugue yesterday to buy fuel. It was worthwhile driving the extra distance for the cheaper prices there because I bought quite a lot – 50.01€ of diesel to top up my Kia, 47.00€ of SP98 for the Savannah and 34.98€ for 20 litres of SP95 for the Xair. The reason was because I hadn’t even started up the two aircraft since last year, let alone flown them, because of the time I’ve had to spend on my house project, so giving them the attention they needed was well overdue.

I’d left the Xair in the front of the barn as I’d flown that last and also because having outdoor covers, it didn’t matter so much its being near the open front. So I pulled that out, topped up its tanks (it took only about 15 litres) and gave its engine a run for about ten minutes. That was enough time for its water and engine to warm up and as the aircraft has remained clean under its covers, unlike the Savannah whose covers I couldn’t get around to making before I moved out of Plazac and into my caravan, I then turned my attention to the latter.

So it was then time for the Savannah to get the attention it needed, starting with a good wash. Surprisingly, it didn’t need that much because although as usual there were some patches of bird poo on its wings from the tiny little tits that inhabit the barn, the only real problem was the yellow dust that always builds up on its horizontal surfaces. So it was a matter of standing it nose-up on its tail skid to make it easier to get to its wings with my floor mop and giving it a good slosh over with clean water, followed by a leathering.

Then it was time to top up its tanks and for that, as usual, I used the electric fuel pump that I put together a few years ago, which is still working well. It’s the only way that I will fill the Savannah’s tanks while at Malbec. Lifting a jerrican up onto its wings is a mugs game and liable to lead to an accident, even if a pump is used to transfer fuel from the jerrican to the tanks.

I paid dearly by doing that when the cheap battery powered pump that I was using split and poured fuel over the wing and windshield, totally destroying the latter because polycarbonate is highly unresistant to motor fuel, so lesson learned the hard way.

The last time I showed pictures of my pump was several years ago when I built it, so here are some of it in use that I took today. To save having to cart around a charged battery to run it off, I just connect it to the Kia’s battery – quick and easy.

I mount the jerrican at an angle on the pump frame so the discharge tube can be dropped right down into its corner and this is very effective as only a few drops of fuel then remain when pumping is finished. The fuel then passes through an in-line filter before entering the self-charging fuel pumps. I have two in the system and that results in a perfectly acceptable rate of discharge through a tube raised to the height of the Savannah’s wings tanks.

The fuel flow is controlled by a push button on a flying lead that activates the fuel pumps. When I take the rubber outlet tube up to the tank inlets I also take the activation button with me and can control the amount pumped into each tank by extending a finger into the tank while the fuel is being pumped and stopping it when the level approaches the bottom of the tank inlet. The system works really well and I’m very happy with it.

Here’s the setup ready to top up the right wing tank. In case anyone’s interested, the system is built on an old fishing trolley – the best possible use for it in my opinion as I loathe fishing 🙂

Here are a couple of close-ups of the pump arrangement that I made.

When I’ve finished I always wrap the fuel inlet and outlet tubes in plastic and that way I can avoid having any insects or whatever finding their way in and blocking either the tubing or the filter. So far the in-line filter seems to have done an excellent job – I say ‘seems’ because I don’t see any foreign matter in it so assume that I’ve been pretty good at making sure that the fuel I’ve been pumping has been very clean.

And finally to protect the unit as best I can, I then cover the whole thing with a heavy old plastic bag, which has done an excellent job of keeping dust and other general muck off it.

So that was it for today. Both ULMs now have full tanks and are ready to go. Although it had been quite breezy all day, conditions became super calm and ideal for flying at around 8.00 pm. However, I’d done enough for today so didn’t feel like taking advantage. We’ve got some good weather coming up this weekend and even more is forecast for next week with some days with very little wind, so I think I’ll probably wait until then. I’ll see how I feel 😉