Gutted!

The annual Blois ULM-fest is being held this week-end Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th August. Having not long returned from my flight to the UK and back, I didn’t fancy another flight of several hours duration so instead decided that on Sunday I’d drop into Mandy and Dave Lord’s Wanafly Cheese and Chilli fly-in where I’d also be able to meet Phil Quantrill who flies a ‘pendulaire’ out of Nantilles in the Charente, Russ, a UK-based member of microlightforum.com and possibly another French-based member, Clive from Luçon, also in the Charente.

So yesterday I went over to Malbec armed with 30 odd litres of fuel to top up 77ASY’s tanks with the idea of returning today to give it a good wash and clean-up to remove the flies and other muck collected during the UK trip.

I topped up the right hand tank with no problem and had started to do the same with the left hand tank with my little electric pump when its hose detached from the pump body. Before I could stop the pump quite a large volume of fuel had flooded out over the wing, possibly as much as two litres. I was very annoyed when, filling up my tanks at Abbeville on my return journey last week, some kind of air or vapour bubble in the right hand caused some fuel to spill onto the wing when I started up the fuel pump.

I’d had to immediately jump off the chair that I’d been using to get up to wing height in an attempt to mop it off as quickly as possible but yesterday’s mishap was on a different scale entirely, for not only did the spilled fuel flood over the wing surface but some also splashed down over the aircraft’s windscreen. The effect was almost immediate and devastating, as the following picture that I shot afterwards shows.

ICP Savannah damaged windshield

I’m really gutted for several reasons. I’ve now had fuel spilled over both wings within a week, something which can be quite harmful for the paintwork and I just hope that the effects will not be damaging in the longer term as I don’t fancy having to have the Savannah’s wings repainted any time soon. And I’ll now also have to source some suitable polycarbonate sheeting and make up a new windscreen, not a particularly difficult job in itself and one that I’d been thinking about doing in the longer term as some tiny splits were beginning to appear around some of its fixing holes, but at a time of my own choosing and convenience.

But what I’m really annoyed about is that yet again I’ll not be able to go up to Mandy and Dave’s place at Wanafly, which is only an hour’s flight in each direction and which I’ve not been able to revisit for one reason and another in the 4 years since I dropped in there in MYRO on my way down to France over the Easter week end of 2012.

I’d only spoken to Dave a few hours before and told him how much I was looking forward to dropping in and a few hours later I was saying to Mandy that I wouldn’t be able to come after all. And that’s what’s really gutted me 😐