Didn’t get very much done

No flying today because of the wind. It’ll be flyable tomorrow but neither Ken nor Peter will be around so for me, this will be a ‘no-fly’ week-end. Not to worry, though, because tomorrow I’ll be able to crack on with MYRO work and today we had the two little jobs to get out of the way on the X’air. I arrived at Stoke around 11.00 am and Ken and Peter were already partaking of the culinary delights on offer in the airfield cafe. What a difference compared to Linton!

After having some refreshment myself 😉 we got going on putting the power supply into the X’air. It didn’t take long – all I had to do was cut the now redundant GPS lead off that was hanging down from behind the panel, check the polarity of the two wires inside, add a couple of crimp-on spade connectors and connect the new car cigar lighter socket. Then Peter enlarged the existing hole in the panel to take it and the job was done. It’ll be very useful because now we can connect a GPS or Satnav like I use in MYRO, it’ll be possible to take the X’air further afield without having to be preoccupied with navigation. Great! 🙂

Then I turned my attention to the PTT (push-to-talk) switches in the the tops of the joysticks. I’d got hold of two very nice little push-button switches that I wanted to replace them with but when I removed the existing switches, I was due for a surprise. I expected to find just a pair of wires connected to each switch but instead I found four!

Now I had a problem because they clearly don’t operate in the obvious way and my little push-button switches only have connections for two wires anyway. So that was that. I took a few reference pictures to send to Paul in SA who knows about these things, but until I know what to do we’re stuck with the existing switches.

So that was that. Ken had to go off early but Peter and I hung around for a while longer just chewing the fat, drinking cold drinks in the cafe and generally enjoying being on the airfield, which is great. Despite the wind, Chris the CFI did a couple of trial flights (the passengers both said they really enjoyed them) and there was a gyro buzzing around the whole time too. Also quite a few non-flying guests turned up during the day just to visit, which is nice I think. I hope we’ll be able to change the PTT switches – I’m sure we’ll be able to when we know how – but it wasn’t for today. As I type this it’s Saturday evening and the winds have already dropped considerably so it’s a pity that I won’t be able to fly tomorrow. I can’t wait to get MYRO back in the air again so I’ll be back to flying when I choose to and when it suits me. Tomorrow morning I have to take my son and his girlfriend to Gatwick to get them off on holiday and hopefully when I get back I’ll be able to get a good bit done on MYRO stuff. Hopefully more than I managed to get done today on the X’air – but never mind, it was still a good day. Most days spent at the airfield with other microlight people usually are 😉