Ca marche!

Yup, it works! The sun shone today so I was straight out into the garden after lunch to sort out the last bit of wiring work on the X-Air that I wasn’t able to finish last Friday, due to the thunderstorm. Because of the delay, I couldn’t remember how I’d connected up the two pairs of wires that I’d run down to the panel from the senders to the EGT gauge and had to cut some cable ties so I could find out. After replacing them and adding several more on the front down-tube to secure the cables etc running down to the back of the panel and then making the connections to the gauge, I was ready to go.

As usual, the engine started very easily and all of the gauges worked as they should except for the EGT gauge. I stopped the engine and switched the connections for one sender pair round and was pleased to see one of the needles jump up the gauge and start falling slowly as the engine cooled down. Obviously I’d connected the pair the wrong way round – just luck as there’s no way to know which way round they should go. When I went to switch the other pair round, one of the connectors pulled off and by the time I’d replaced it, the engine was too cool for either EGT sender to register. I started the engine up again and was then delighted to see both needles starting to climb, so both pairs had been connected the wrong way round – what’s the chance of that happening, as Harry Hill might say… But best of all, the fact that there were no obvious exhaust leaks and the gauge was working as it should showed that my arrangement for mounting the senders into the exhaust manifold stubs is effective. The fuel pressure gauge was also working fine, and when I revved the engine up to about 6000 RPM it showed a healthy pressure of around 0.3 bar or more, which is correct.

The plastic tube connecting MYRO’s ASI and pitot tube was run from the gauge under the panel, up the front down tube and into the wing, then out again and down inside one of the jury struts at the bottom of which it finally emerged to be connected to the pitot. It was a nice neat arrangement when done, but fiddly to connect up. I suppose the same thing could be done for the X-Air. In fact, because it was de-rigged more frequently than MYRO, the tube comes out from under the X-Air’s panel into the cabin, down a tube on the left hand side, straight out of the pilot’s door and up the front strut to a different sort of pitot entirely to what’s permitted for the X-Air in the UK. The arrangement is simple and as it works, I’ve decided to keep it, so the last job this afternoon was connecting the tube, running it down as far as the door and cable-tying it. And that was that! It means that I’ve finished the modifications that I wanted to make and if the wings were fitted and rigged, the X-Air could now be flow. It’s taken much longer than I expected it would, solely because of the weather we’ve had in recent months, and there are small things still to be done, like changing visually unattractive corroded nuts and bolts, but they can be ongoing while the aircraft is being flown. The last major thing I want to do before turning to the wings and re-rigging is re-varnish the wooden prop. I’ve had a can of clear varnish ready for several weeks and I’ll be very pleased when I’m able to do it, hopefully later this week.

One thing, however, has taken the shine off the day. I’ve just got my latest EDF bill, which is huge. One of the reasons for this is that they have applied quite a significant charge for converting the dangerous 400V 3-phase electrical supply in my home that almost resulted in the house burning down and could have proven fatal if I’d received a shock from a plug or an appliance that had been damaged, over to the usual safe 220V single phase. I’m not prepared to pay it so I foresee being locked in a dispute with them yet again. EDF is a dinosaur and is the worst example I’ve ever come across of what happens when a public sector monolith has no competition and thinks it can do what it likes. I came over to France for what I’d hoped would be a quiet and fulfilling retirement but EDF has been the single fly in the ointment. So yet again it appears that I have no choice but to waste more of my time doing battle with them. There’s a good side to France and the French people which I love, but there’s a negative side as well, and EDF in my view is one of the very worst examples of it 😐