Covers finished – for now

I kept putting the job off because I thought it would be tricky to get right, but in the end I got on with making my prop cover today. And in fact I was very pleased with the result because it turned out much better than I ever thought it could or would. So there’s a lesson for procrastinators everywhere, if ever I heard one 🙂

I didn’t have time to take any pics because as soon as I’d finished I needed to dash off for a welcome few beers with Wim and Sophie and after all the work I’ve done non-stop on my new covers lately, I needed them too. Regis also turned up shortly after me so we had an entertaining time exchanging the latest gossip and news on what we’d been up to since we last met. As I plan, subject to weather, to fly the X-Air across to Galinat on Saturday morning, Wim and Regis will be over to give me hand on Friday afternoon to remove its wings, shift it onto the field opposite my house and get it rigged ready for the flight. After the storm last night, I was rather concerned by the news from Regis which was that he had been to Galinat this morning and found that the small road next to the airfield was full of fallen trees. However, I doubt that lightening will strike twice in the same place (if readers will excuse the pun) and I still intend to go ahead with my plan. I have four metal screw-in tie downs which I’ll have to use initially but I think I’ll have to make eight concrete-filled tyre tie-downs to make sure the X-Air is secure in high winds as soon as possible ie next week, to use until I can get a hangar put up.

It rained quite hard while I was at Wim’s and when I got home earlier this evening it was still bucketing down quite hard. I thought I’d check to see how the covers were performing and while I was under the wings, I was dismayed to see rain falling not only off the covers themselves but also off the wing trailing edges under the covers. So MYRO’s old blue wing covers aren’t waterproof at all! This is not a game-changing problem as the X-Air is covered in Dacron from which they make yacht sails, which are exposed to water throughout their lives. However, I’d prefer any covers I use to be both UV and waterproof, so I’ll have to get back to my sewing machine once I’ve made the concrete tie-downs and finish off the black wing covers that I cut out and put to one side when I found that the HH-66 didn’t work on them. And then I’ll have to use MYRO’s old fuselage covers as patterns for new black X-Air ones. So lots of little jobs beginning to stack up, but hopefully after Saturday I’ll at least be able to combine them with flying the X-Air 😀