Getting organised – again

As of today, I haven’t flown for over a month, since the day on which I aborted my planned flight to the UK actually. This has mainly been due to the fact that I really haven’t felt well enough. I did do some flights in the Savannah a few weeks ago when I didn’t feel too bad and even took Wim’s family for flights around Montignac from Galinat, but somehow between then and the day of my UK flight, things had crept up on me without my realising it.

This showed itself in a couple of ways – one was a feeling of general malaise, not so much being generally unwell, more of just being some way below par, and the other was constant discomfort in my stomach and chest. I now realise that this was due to the lingering effects of the chemotherapy – I did have 8 months of it which from what I’ve since learnt is quite a lot – and I have been advised that it could still be several more weeks, even months, before the chemicals clear completely out of my system.

I’m prepared to believe it too because I still have tingling and lack of sensation in my little fingers and big toes and ‘chemo nails’ which are much more yellowy than normal with vertical ridges on them. My fingernails also tend to split very easily, for example even if I merely catch them on my duvet cover when making my bed. But in the last couple of weeks things have improved greatly and I can now say that I almost feel completely normal again.

I don’t know whether there’s actually a connection, but a few weeks ago I read somewhere that mangoes contain everything that you need to achieve a balanced digestive system and if you suffer from a constantly upset stomach that you should eat a mango every day. So that’s what I started doing – every morning with my breakfast, not a whole mango but just a large slice – and I thought nothing more of it. However, after a week or so I suddenly realised that I felt well again and my stomach and chest pains had disappeared.

I don’t think that it was due to a placebo effect because I’ve since stopped regularly eating mango and I still not only feel fine but am actually eating normally (ie everything) again and am feeling better by the day. So well in fact, that I’ve been motivated to start working on my aircraft again and not only have I obtained the special varnish and thinner to use on the X-Air so I can get it tidied up and advertised for sale, but also on the Weedhopper.

The Weedhopper has been in the back of the barn since I moved the X-Air to the front so I could start preparing the wings for varnishing. It’s filthy and I’ll be getting both it and the X-Air out again for a wash and brush up while the weather is so good. I was working on the Weed today, doing what I’ll tell in a moment, and when at the end of the afternoon I went back to my car, which was standing in the shade of the barn, its temperature gauge read 38 degrees Celsius. It fell back when I started the engine but only by a couple of degrees, so today was a real scorcher.

Not the best day then to be working on an aircraft in the back of the barn. But at the end of the day it was well worth the sweat and discomfort, because today I was finishing the Weedhopper off by installing its radio ready for when I next fly it, which will hopefully be this week-end if it’s not too hot and thermic. Unlike in the UK where the mandatory changeover to 8.33kHz is imminent, here in France we have a concession that means it won’t happen until 2021.

That means that my trusty little Vertex VXA-220 (not to mention the Icom in my Savannah) still has another couple of years of life in it, so it’s worth my while copying the same kit installation that I have in the X-Air over into the Weedhopper so the set-up can just be switched over at will. The Velcro pads that attached the kit to MYRO’s panel are still in the Weedhopper so it was just a matter of rigging up a PTT button and connection and as I already had a suitable miniature button and some cable, I just had to order a couple of twin pole Binder connectors (giving me a spare, just in case) and a suitable handlebar grip to go onto the Weedhopper’s control column.

I made up the Binder connection a couple of days ago so today was just about drilling the control column for the PTT cable and fitting the button. The Weed came to me with just a bare control column tube with no rubber grip on it, but I solved that problem by mounting the new PTT button on a plastic washer of the same diameter as the column, placing the washer and button on its top and then sliding a handlebar grip, into which I’d already cut a suitable size hole, down over it to keep everything in place. I also took the precaution of routing the PTT cable through a length of small bore transparent fuel tubing to protect it where it emerges through the hole I’d drilled in the column.

I was well pleased with the final result which is quite neat and tidy and much better I think than the horrible wooden handles on the control columns in the X-Air, as the following pics show. And although it was too hot and turbulent today for any ULMs to be flying, when I tuned in I did pick up an English-speaking pilot, possibly a Ryanair flight going into Bergerac, communicating with the regional Aquitaine frequency, so I know that the system works OK.

And by the way, a cautionary note for everyone who uses fuel containing alcohol, as I do in the Weedhopper and the X-Air. Wim and I were thinking about flying our Weedhoppers up to the Charente last week-end, to Club Aero-Focus where we enjoyed a fantastic Fête de la St Jean evening during our west coast tour back in 2015. We decided not to go after all and just as well that we did, because this week the new rubber primer bulb that I fitted to the Weedhopper only two years ago failed.

It had actually perished at each end where the connections are and one end failed completely and split with fuel gushing out of it. If this had happened in the air, not only would I have suffered engine failure due to fuel starvation with all that that entails (forced landing etc) but while it was happening, I’d also have had fuel gushing into the cabin and over my left leg. The consequences of this hardly bear thinking about, so from now on, I’ll be replacing the new one that I also fitted this week every two years, or a bit less probably, to be on the safe side.

It’s forecast to be sunny but cooler tomorrow so probably a good day to get both the Weedhopper and the X-Air out into the open for a good clean-up. I’ve also got news on the Savannah. I’ve found a way to effect the repair to its right wing slat at quite a low cost without going to the extent of fitting the VG kit, which is quite expensive but would also be quite a time-consuming business when I have other things that I need to do. But more about that later when I come to do it 😉