Cleared for take off

Well, yes, after the wings have been mounted and fuel put in the tanks! But first 28AAD, my French Weedhopper, must be weighed, have its paperwork done to send off to the DGAC to get its Carte Jaune back, have its engine started and run and have some taxi checks and a few hops before getting airborne for real.

But it is now in what should be a fully flyable state. Here’s a shot of its wings with the wing battens all now in place. Adding cord loops to the batten ends was a horribly fiddly job this morning but now they’re all back on as they should be.

Next job was to make up its bungie door straps. I made the internal hook fixings yesterday so today all I had to do was drill the doors and attach the straps. The ‘official’ arrangement is to hold the doors closed by just hooking their straps together but I don’t like that because if you’re flying solo and want to close the doors, you have to make sure the passenger door is pulled-to first. Then when you’re strapped in your seat and just about to grab its strap to close both doors, the darn wind blows taking the passenger door with it, so you have to get out and do it all over again.

I get around that by attaching two cable-tie loops to the horizontal bar behind your head, one for each door, so if you’re flying alone, you don’t need to open the passenger door at all. You can see my arrangement below.

I then had to make a decision about the altimeter. I would have preferred to fit a 10000 ft model but I already had one that reads to 5000 ft, so the extra cost couldn’t really be justified, especially as an aircraft like the Weedhopper rarely exceeds such a height. Here’s a shot of the panel with it in place. Now all I need is to come across, or buy a variometer.

So that’s it. When the wings are mounted, I’ll need to find a way of attaching the pitot tube to the left wing strut. There was a little bracket on MYRO’s old wing and I’ll have to look and see if I can find it. If not, it’ll be easy enough to make something up. So here’s what should be the final shot of 28AAD before everything goes together.

I can’t wait and I’m hoping that it will be sooner rather than later 😉