Getting the show on the road ….. at last

Several days ago I phoned Bill Sherlock to ask about replacing the clear polycarbonate in MYRO’s screen and door panels and he kindly advised me of the required thicknesses – 1.5mm for the screen and 1.0mm for the door panels. I had got hold of that information from elsewhere and really just wanted authoritative confirmation that it was correct. However, I was very glad that I’d phoned him for another reason. Ordinarily I would then have blasted merrily away, got hold of the plastic and done the job. He wisely cautioned against doing that in view of a recent incident when a door that had been recently repaired in such a way fell off an AX3 while in flight, narrowly missing a person on the ground.

He suggested that I downloaded and submitted a BMAA W002 repair form to the BMAA Technical Office covering the work to be done. So that’s what I did a few days ago, and now I’m waiting for a response. I don’t see how the repair can be prevented or whatever, but it does officially flag it up to the BMAA Inspector who will eventually inspect MYRO for its PTF (Permit to Fly) and will then be able to pay special attention to the completed work to ensure that it fully meets all the requirements for safe flight. I would be happy with that 😉

And I’ve also made some more progress today. Yesterday, as the weather was so good, I decided to pop down to the strip, not to fly but to take the reference pics of MZEL that I will need to help me put MYRO back together. I was surprised when I arrived at the strip in the mid-afternoon to find that it was almost deserted. There was just one owner who had not long returned from a flight and was cleaning the front of his aircraft, and that’s all! What a shame as at the time, it was glorious for flying. Trouble was, the weather forecast had said that it would be dull, clouding over and with a chance of occasional light showers 🙁

Frankly, it could not have been more wrong. Isn’t it incredible that even with all of the technolgy that’s available, apparently it’s still impossible to make a reliable area forecast for just a mere few hours ahead. The mind boggles 😕

Anyway, I got the pics I needed using flash in the hangar without having to pull MZEL out into the open. Then today, armed with them and the AX3 Parts Manual, I was able to make an initial list of the components I need to make a start on getting MYRO back together, in particular getting the engine mounted on the fuselage. Then I phoned P & M Aviation and emailed it over. Hopefully they’ll have everything I need in stock and with a bit of luck I’ll hear from them tomorrow to give them my card number so the items can be despatched. After that I got onto the ConAir web site and ordered the twin EGT gauge that I need. Rosie said that the twin CHT gauge that’s still in MYRO should work OK as she thinks that previous problems were down to the sensors that I have replaced, of course, with the ones on the wiring loom I got from Mark at Galaxy. I also ordered some high temperature red silicone for the exhaust manifold joint, so pretty soon I should have everything to hand to make a proper start on the work.

The first steps in most projects are small ones as in this case, but hopefully pretty soon I’ll have things moving along a bit more briskly. The show is at last getting on the road 🙂