That’s the difference between last week-end and the one before that I mentioned in my previous posting, below. Should have known it because last week-end was a Bank Holiday one, of course, so what should you expect 😕

There was no chance of getting MYRO’s wings back on as I’d planned and maybe so long as Paul doesn’t mind having MYRO’s fuselage in his hangar, perhaps it’s the best place for it to stay until I can see a definite date when I’ll be able to get it into the air. I had to go down to Linton anyway to settle up for this year’s hangarage and when I got there I found Bob and Lee sitting gloomily inside the cabin while the wind blew a right hooley outside.

Lee had been there for quite a while and had been hoping to get a flight in his Quantum but it was pretty obvious that there was no chance of the wind dropping. So that knocked that on the head. We all took a stroll down to the hangar which had been opened up earlier and I had a chance to check MYRO’s wings out. Bob said that as the wings are standing on the floor, I have to be careful because of mice which have been known to chew almost anything. So I gave them a look-over and all seemed to be well. And that was that. Toddie was enjoying himself racing around chasing scents and he was a bit disappointed when we all decided to shut up shop and call it a day.

Yesterday (Monday) was even worse and we had gloomy skies and showers all day. And as for today, best not to talk about it as it’s like being back in October again with really thick cloud and showers for most of the day. Please, please don’t say that we’re getting back into the same old weather pattern that has plagued us in recent years, because we’d hoped that the exceptional weather that we endured last Winter had broken the trend.

I suppose all we can do is wait and see 😐

Couldn’t type the headline ‘Phew, what a scorcher!’ because I think I’ve used it once before, but it’s been so hot, I can’t be bothered to find out. We’ve had over 80 degrees today and this morning I had to switch on the portable air conditioning unit I have in the conservatory or otherwise it would have been unbearable in there. I’m not a great fan of conservatories – I’m of the view that greenhouses are great for tomatoes but naff for people – so I was glad to get out later on. I got my stuff and Toddie together and away we went, off to Linton.

When I got there I was amazed to find the gate still locked. I phoned Bob and he said he was just leaving to come down, so I opened up and drove across to the strip. Toddie loves it there. Being an ex-gun dog, he loves the countryside and pretty soon even though he was 11 last week, he was racing around like a demented thing following scents all over the place. I’d spotted a pair of pheasants down near one of the hangars and we walked down in that direction as I wanted to see the area where MYRO will soon be parked. Toddie realised the birds were in the long grass and I suppose some half-forgotten instinct came to bear and in he shot. The birds flew up squawking away like mad and a couple of seconds later a very self-satisfied Toddie re-emerged.

Bob turned up a few moments later and when we met, I said I was absolutely amazed that nobody was flying on such a lovely day. Bob said that he was going to have an hour or so later on when the turbulence caused by the heat had died down and I said that I couldn’t blame him. I also said that once I’ve got my Licence back, there’ll be a little bit more flying going on at Linton, and he said that wouldn’t be a bad thing 🙂

We sat and chewed the fat for a couple of hours or so which is almost as good as flying, when you’re not. Sometimes if you talk about microlights to ‘ordinary’ folk, you can begin to see their eyes glazing over after a few minutes, but it’s amazing how two people who share the same enthusiasm can chat away about it for hours and never get bored.

We were joined a bit later by Peter, Ken’s brother who had something he wanted to do and also wouldn’t be flying. Bob then got kitted up and took off in his Quik and I decided to leave as he flew off into the distance.

If you like aircraft and flying, it’s difficult to beat being on an airfield, especially one that’s as glorious as Linton, on a day like today. The only thing that’s better is being on an airfield and flying, but that will come now soon enough. I also decided that I’ll get MYRO’s wings back on next week end so I hope we have another few days of good weather for that, too.

I’m so grateful to Joan Walsh from Saxon Microlights in Essex and who’s also a BMAA Council member, who very kindly helped me out with some advice yesterday. She saw some comments that I’d posted about how frustrated I was about the amount of training I apparently needed given my previous flying experience and how I was annoyed that the exams I took last May were about to ‘expire’ and that I’d then have to take them again.

She referred me to NPPL/XC/REV 08 dated 26 Jan 2009, ALLOWANCES AGAINST TRAINING which is a document on the BMAA web site and said that her interpretation was different to what I had originally been advised. So this morning I spoke to Geoff Weighell, the BMAA Chief Executive, who kindly spared me some of his time. He confirmed that Joan’s interpretation is absolutely correct.

In fact I do not need to do a full NPPL(M) training course. I didn’t even need to take the exams, but no harm done there because revision of valuable information never hurt anyone, did it. All I needed to do was undergo a period of training (unspecified) by a qualified Microlight Flying Instructor and then pass a GST (General Skills Test) and the GST oral examination. Simple 😕

What’s annoying is that if I’d carried on flying continuously last Summer and not spent the time working on MYRO, I could have done that easily last year and be flying now. But that’s water under the bridge. At least now I know that I don’t have to worry about the ‘time limit’ on the ruddy exams and can aim to take the GST whenever I’m ready to at a time that suits me. And I don’t have to carry on paying to do fairly expensive cross countries in someone else’s aircraft when my own has been there waiting for me for weeks and weeks!

And that’s excellent news 😀

I told Rosie when I left yesterday evening that I’d like to go again this morning subject to the wind conditions that the forecasts had said might be a bit ‘iffy’.

She suggested that to cover all eventualities in the event that I would be able to fly, I should plan flights to both Stoke and Headcorn, which have runways that are very differently aligned to each. In the event, when I got the numbers for the wind this morning, I decided that Headcorn it would be.

So I turned up at the field a bit later than originally planned and Rosie was preparing to go off in the C42 with another student. While she was getting ready to go she said that if it was OK with me, I should make Headcorn one of my qualifying cross countries.

Now I realised why Rosie had been so intent on sending me all over the countryside yesterday! She had had an ulterior motive. She wanted to see if I was confident enough to go away from the field and then, having done so, that I was able to find my way back again 😕

Well of course I was up for it. The only problem was that Rosie has unfortunately had radio problems with MZEL and after the most recent tweaking, the radio hasn’t been tested. I’d meant to take my own with me but had forgotten so as Headcorn is PPO (Prior Permission Only) when I phoned them to tell them I was planning to come in on a qualifying cross country, I mentioned that I might be non-radio. They said that that was OK so long as I exercised good airmanship and kept a good look-out, but added that if they didn’t see me land, they wouldn’t be able to sign my Qualifying Cross Country Form. I decided to take that risk 😆

I took off and switched to Headcorn several minutes later. I could hear a few aircraft in the circuit and transmitted for a radio check. No response. I tried a few more times as I got closer to the airfield but as there was still no response, I decided I would join the circuit non-radio and not transmit again in case I was causing any interference that might affect other pilots.

As I approached Ashford, I spotted a couple of flexwings flying together on my right. One was below me and passed to my rear while the other which was above me passed above and in front. It was obvious that we’d all seen each other so it was all quite safe.

Shortly afterwards Headcorn came into view. The runway in use was 29 L and because of intense parachuting activity and rotary traffic, fixed wings must remain clear of the dead side. So I stayed clear of the zone, descended to circuit height and flew crosswind above the upwind end of the runway to join downwind. There was a Tiger Club Tiger Moth performing aerobatics over the field so I had to keep a good look-out. Luckily I’d managed to catch the QFE from transmissions I’d heard previously and everything went pretty smoothly. Until I was on base leg that is. Because I was non-radio I decided to fly a wide circuit remaining high on base leg and it was then I spotted a Robin overtaking below me and cutting in front on final. No problem, he was much quicker than me so I delayed my turn onto final a bit and kept him in sight. By the time I landed he was already clear of the runway. Great fun 😉

There was a twin landing behind me and he made it in OK but a single behind him had cut it a bit too fine and had to go around. Anyway, I left them to it and followed the Robin, which turned out to be German registered, round to parking. I parked MZEL alongside him and went off to pay my £10 landing fee. And I’m also glad to say that ATC did see me land so I was able to get my form signed as well!

Afterwards I took a few pics as a record of the event. After all, the first time I flew into Headcorn was in April 1980 so I thought it worth recording what was more or less a 30-year anniversary 😀

The flight back was more or less as planned. As I flew over Ashford I caught a beautiful aroma rising from the perfumery factory there which was a nice surprise. Unfortunately I had a less nice surprise waiting for me! After landing I found that my mobile phone that I’d put in a jacket pocket was missing. Seems that somewhere along the route it had fallen out and dropped out through the gap in MZEL’s pod. What is really annoying is that wherever it fell, it’s still working because I’ve rung it and there’s a ringing tone. If it did drop out in flight, and I think it must have, 1500ft without a parachute is pretty good. Samsung would be very proud I’m sure 😀

I’d hoped to get this post done yesterday but I didn’t have time so this is the first of two today.

As the weather was being very cooperative, I decided to allow myself a bit of time off yesterday as I’ve been working very long hours on a new web site. So as the last time I flew was three weeks ago but for one day, Rosie and I did a little dual to check that my landings were still OK. In fact, I was surprised how long it took for me to feel ‘comfortable’ again and there were several ‘slack’ areas that I knew myself I’d need to pay attention to. Anyway, Rosie suggested going off for a bit more solo and this time proposed that I covered a quite complicated zig-zag route down to the south, then up to the north and back again.

So off I went. I climbed more or less straight out on a southerly heading and here’s a general pic I took after a few minutes looking south towards Hythe with the English Channel beyond.

The next pic is just a general shot looking south with the French coast clearly visible in the distance.

This next one shows the port of Folkestone. I was surprised how much less active Folkestone is compared to Dover. I suppose it’s because Folkestone harbour and the ferries that used to be quite active there have now given way to the Channel Tunnel which is now also served through Folkestone.

The next pic shows what I mean, with Dover harbour in the middle distance and several ferries visible. Just to the right you can also just catch a glimpse of the White Cliffs.

Here’s another shot of Folkestone town. Unfortunately, I just missed including the whole of the harbour because of the problems of taking pictures at the same time as flying the aircraft!

Next is another general shot taken looking from Folkestone towards Dover. Isn’t this a lovely part of the country to fly in!

I didn’t get very close to Dover because I had to make a left turn and head back north but here’s a shot of Dover harbour itself. You can just see the castle on the cliff-top on the left.

My next destination was Canterbury which I wanted to reach by roughly following the line of the main A2 road. The rules of the air mean that you keep such a line feature on your left and here you can see how the road sweeps down through the Kentish countryside.

I then took a shot out of the other side of the cabin showing how the North Kent coast was clearly visible. There are several wind farms in the Thames Estuary in the area shown but they are not visible in this shot.

Finally, here’s the last shot I took just before I turned around and headed away to Deal over on the coast. It’s of the City of Canterbury. The famous cathedral is just visible in the city centre but I’ll have to leave some better shots for another time. In the distance you can see the Medway Estuary and the Isle of Sheppey.

After leaving Canterbury I flew over to the coast just to the north of Deal. I followed the coastline southwards over the sea and flew over Deal pier before turning right to head back to the field. Yet again I’d taken off without any gloves and by this time my hands were too cold to take any more shots. By the time I landed at around 5.00pm I was feeling pretty chilly I have to say. The flight lasted for one hour fifteen minutes and what an enjoyable time it had been 🙂

I arrived at the field at about 8.45am. Rosie was already there and had fuelled up MZEL ready to go. Rosie’s idea was for me to go off by myself and build up a bit of solo time this morning, but first I had to do two things. The first was demonstrate that I could effectively carry out a practice forced landing and the second was demonstrate that my flying, and especially my landing, were up to scratch enough to be allowed to go off alone as we both knew that with the clear, sunny weather that we expected today, it would soon start to ‘bubble up’ a bit.

The first two missions were accomplished in about forty minutes, the second not without a minor hitch or two because when we returned to the field, the wind was swinging around quite a bit with some quite considerable gusts from the right on runway 02. So it was a bit tricky keeping the wheels straight on touchdown but although not one of my best I have to say, we both walked away from the landing and the aircraft was re-usable afterwards 🙂

So then I was let loose and I had a marvellous hour and fifteen minutes. I headed off towards Dover and there were the castle on the cliff-top and the harbour with the Cross-Channel Ferries on my right. Then I turned slightly left and headed for the coast which I crossed a few minutes later. The air was pretty calm and I maintained a steady altitude of 1250ft without too many problems. Damn – I had forgotten to get my camera back off Rosie again, so all of this and no shots possible! I carried on up the coastline over the sea until I got to Deal and then I turned left and headed towards the practice field where I had agreed to meet up again with Rosie. Sure enough there she was and I did a couple of practice touch-and-goes, the second of which she was on the ground viewing from next to the threshold.

After the second landing I decided to get a bit more familiar with the local area. The Manston TAF had warned of sea mist early in the day and it had been very noticeable to the north when I was flying out. In fact the first time I saw it I had decided that if it began thickening up and moving south, I’d head for home but in the event it hadn’t been necessary. So now I decided to head a bit further north as the mist and haze had cleared a bit. I had to be careful to keep clear of the Manston zone but that didn’t have to be a problem so long as I stayed south of Sandwich. The Pfizer buildings stuck out like a sore thumb and the wind farms were clearly visible in the sea way beyond them.

All good things have to come to an end though, and it was soon time to head back for home. By this time the conditions were becoming pretty thermic and I couldn’t help but notice how much more accomplished I am now at handling them. It just goes to show, even when you’re cursing and thinking that you’re not making progress because the conditions are thwarting you, in actual fact you are 😉

I had heard Rosie calling up for landing with her other student in the C42 some minutes before and pretty soon I was calling downwind and final. Compared to yesterday, as expected the approach and landing on 02 were much more tricky, but I didn’t manage too badly. I was nicely in balance and lined up over the threshold when I cut the power as usual. Then wham – there was a much larger gust of wind down the runway and swinging round to the right just as I was flaring. Nothing much I could do. I just had to use the controls to keep as straight as possible down the runway and at a good height without ballooning. I managed to do both but because the gust continued, I floated a lot further than I originally anticipated. But no harm done – the touchdown was actually a lot softer than I thought it might have been and as I slowed down and prepared to turn round, I couldn’t help laughing out loud to myself 😀

I had a very enjoyable de-brief with Rosie and we did the numbers. A tally up showed that I now have 5 minutes less than two hours solo, so five more to go if I’m to reach my target. Can I do it in time? We’ll see – only time will tell.

Sunday update. I forgot to mention when I wrote this yesterday that I also dropped into Linton on the way home to see what was happening. Answer – not a lot 🙂

Bob and Paul were sat out in the sun chatting over a brew, one of the many pleasures of microlight flying. Earlier in the day, Paul had flown down to Beachy Head in his QuikR to test out his new video cam which he’d had since Christmas but never used. His first video was pretty impressive and as he had flown over an area that was very similar to the one that I had also earlier in the day and been unable to take any pics, I thought I’d give it a target=”_blank”>LINK to give an idea of what I had been able to enjoy yesterday.

And by way of a compromise, here are a few pics of MZEL taken after I’d landed.

The last pic also shows Rosie’s other steed, the C42 which I mentioned earlier. So far I’ve not had a wild urge to want to fly it, having been used to flying ‘spamcans’ before, but I guess I’ll get around to it sometime 😉

Today was quiet for business and as I’ve had a reasonably good week, I thought I’d ring Rosie and see how she was fixed for a flight this afternoon. After a thumbs-up I found myself down at the field at around 5.45pm. The weather was gorgeous with just a slight gusting cross-wind on runway 02 so while Rosie finished off with another student, I got MZEL out of the hangar and did a DI. Funny how my DIs have become more thorough and much more effective since my involvement with MYRO but I suppose that’s not surprising really as I’m now so much more familiar with the structure and design of the AX3.

We took off and headed for the practice strip where I did a powered approach and landing on runway 03. Rosie then decided to get out straight away and told me to go off and do a few circuits. So I did 🙂

I started with two left hand circuit, powered approaches and ended with a right hand before pulling up for a quick chat with Rosie. Everything was fine so she said that I should go off immediately and do a couple of solo glide approaches. So again, I did 😀

They both went off pretty well and I threw in a bit of side-slipping for good measure, just for practise and old times’ sake you understand 😉 I got a total of 30 minutes solo in and then it was time to head back to the home field. But now it all got a bit more tricky because we were flying back straight into the gradually setting sun. However, I located the field OK and we made it without incident. I was looking forward to the landing because almost every time we’ve flown in the past, we’ve used runway 20 because of the prevailing wind. This time we were on 02 and I clearly remember the last time we landed on it. The wind was gusting badly and rolling over the trees on the left and the tractor was out right next to the threshold cutting the grass. It was early on in my AX3 flying and things were so tricky that just before we landed I handed over to Rosie’s more experienced hands. So this time landing meant quite a lot to me, and what did I do? I approached too high of course. The runway has trees at both ends and as I wasn’t about to touch down much before the mid point, I elected to go-around. This was my first go-around in the AX3 and Rosie commended me for it. I also think it was good experience to do it dual with an experienced pilot sitting next to me. Anyway, the next approach was fine and this time I nailed it I’m glad to say.

I discussed with Rosie what I need to do in order to get a GST in by the end of May. It doesn’t look good, I have to say. I need to get in a minimum of 7 hours solo and after today, my total stands at only 40 minutes! I phoned Rosie when I got home because I forgot to take my camera back off her and after a brief chat, I decided to fly again tomorrow at 9.00am. Desperate measures are called for! I’d better go off and set the alarm clock 😉

And it most certainly was! We had wall-to-wall non-stop sunshine all day today with a little bit of Icelandic volcanic ash thrown in for good measure and I also managed several more big steps towards getting MYRO completed.

It was early-to-bed and early-to-rise for me because I wanted to get down to the airfield as early as possible to take advantage of the gorgeous weather forecast. So I was up before 7.00am and out early to finish removing MYRO’s old registration letters from the fin. After all my faffing around yesterday I managed it surprisingly quickly and ended up by giving the fin a wash and applying the new letters. They are a bit bigger than the old ones but they really do sharpen up the image by quite a lot!

Then I had to load everything into (and onto) the car for transportation to Linton. I press-ganged a passing neighbour into helping me tie the horizontal stabiliser directly onto the roof of my car supported by foam rubber pads and with the wing struts, rudder fin, all the necessary nuts, bolts, rigging pins, tools etc that I needed all loaded inside, I was able to shift everything in one load. The following two pics show that it looked a little bit weird but the arrangement worked perfectly and I made the journey to Linton without incident.

I took a packed lunch and a cold drink with me and I decided to eat my lunch before my hands got too dirty. Then I got started with a vengeance. I can hardly remember a day when everything seemed to go so easily and so well. I want to take my time now that large-scale assembly and rigging is involved because safety is all about attention to detail. So I kept consulting the parts list and assembly diagrams to make sure that I assembled things in the correct order and as a result, things went together quite quickly and very smoothly. At one point I found that whoever had removed MYRO’s tail fin had lost one of the rudder pivot bushes and that could have meant stopping at that point until I’d obtained a replacement. But luckily, I’d ordered two new replacement aileron brackets which each came with new bushes and I had the idea of using one from an old bracket as they appeared to be identical. And so they were and it worked perfectly. What a bit of luck!

I got the horizontal stabiliser on and connected the elevator for the first time since I disconnected it when I got MYRO way back last June. It was a very nice feeling I can tell you 🙂

I needed a hand to connect the elevator trim cables because they seemed rather tight. John was there this afternoon and I compared the tension of MYRO’s trim cables with those on his AX3 and sure enough, his were a lot less taught. Robert helped me to connect MYRO’s and after they’d been connected for an hour or two, they did appear to slacken off a little so I think they will be OK. They must have been the same before because there’s nothing for them to snag on inside the fuselage and there was never any problem that I’m aware of.

Then it was time to fit the rudder. It went on surprisingly easily and this was the first time it had been attached to MYRO’s fuselage since August 2008. How satisfying – another major milestone – and when I’d finished connecting the rudder cables, it meant that two of MYRO’s three primary controls were connected. Only the ailerons to go now 😀

With the rudder on it was time to finish up and push MYRO back into Paul’s hangar which I’m very grateful for while the wings are still off, with all this volcanic ash debris in the air and now dropping down, as we could see on our cars. And not before time for me too, because what with the early start, by this time at the end of the afternoon, I was feeling pretty tired. But it was well worth it as the following pics show.

So this now only leaves the wings to go on. John mentioned that compared to today’s jobs, putting the wings back on is a doddle and I can well believe him. I replaced one aileron bracket today when I pinched the bush off the old one so there’s just the other one to do. The other fixings are then nearly all clevis pins with safety rings which only take a few moments to insert, so with a helper it shouldn’t take too long at all to get the wings back on and the ailerons reconnected. And that will more or less be it!

So that’s what’s planned for next weekend. In the meantime I’ll check what’s left of the last batch of nuts and bolts that I ordered to make sure that I didn’t miss anything or have used a new one to replace an old component that I originally hadn’t planned for. After all, I don’t want to let any little silly hiccups like that bring things to a halt just as I’m about to finish the job, do I 😉

Borrowed my stepson’s car and returned Rosie’s trailer yesterday evening, so that cleared the decks ready for the final couple of laps. I only have to think about getting MYRO finished now. The weather today was glorious. I phoned Rosie first thing to let her know her trailer was back and all she wanted to do was dash off and go flying, and who could blame her. I would like to have done the same myself but unfortunately I had to be strict with myself and press on with my jobs 🙁

The final nuts, bolts and other sundry items that I need to finish off MYRO and get it all back together again arrived this morning from P & M, so my first job was smashing the dandelions down on my back lawn with the Flymo so I could get all the struts and the tailplane assemblies out and do the work that I needed to do on them.

First out were the struts. Bucket of water, cleaning materials, elbow grease – pretty soon they were all standing there white and glistening in the sun. Very satisfying. Considering MYRO is over 15 years old and has been used for training for much of that time, I was pleasantly surprised at how few knocks and scratches there are on them. I didn’t bother touching in any spots today as I had other things to do, but I may do eventually when everything is finished.

Next onto the lawn was the horizontal stabiliser. The work needed here was purely cosmetic – just gave it a bit of a clean and replaced several nuts and bolts that although still safe, were a bit rusty and a bit of an eye-sore. I was very pleased with the results 🙂

Last job was the rudder. I was rather sad to see when I took it off the garage wall where it had been hanging safely since last June, that there were several indentations on the fabric on the side that had been against the wall and had therefore not been visible. There was nothing on the wall that could have caused them and I can only conclude that as the rudder had been placed in the rear of MYRO’s fuselage when I acquired it, something inside had been responsible. I suspect it was the coiled up aileron cables. Two of the indentations were not too bad but one higher up on the fin had slightly perforated. Fortunately the damage is not too severe – there are many AX3s flying with much, much worse – and I think that a spot of VinylWeld will do the job. The tube I have is now far too old and I have to buy another anyway to sort out the little nick that was caused to the fabric on one wing leading edge when we transported them last week.

The very last job for today was the one I’d been least looking forward to – removing the old, tatty registration letters from MYRO’s fin. My reservations proved to be well founded and the job turned out to be a total stinker. The old letters came off no problem but when they did so, they left behind the old glue residue. Shifting this was a horrible job – I tried all kinds of solvents and cleaning materials but there was no easy way to do it. In the end I found that the best way was to very carefully heat the old glue up with a hair dryer and rub it when soft with a pad of dry kitchen roll. Then it was just a matter of cleaning the gunge that was left off in any way possible 😯

I finished off one side and made a good start on the other but in the end I had to call it a day. So that’s a job to be finished off tomorrow. I loaded all the struts into my car ready to go off to Linton tomorrow but I’ll try to finish the fin off first before I do anything else. Otherwise I’ll be side-tracked and it would be very tricky doing the lettering if the fin was on the aircraft.

I’d like to think that with the weather being so good, MYRO might be back together again by the end of tomorrow. However, it might be too big an ask and we’ll just have to wait and see 😉

I’d arranged to meet up with Bob at the airfield yesterday morning at 9.00 am and when I arrived, I found that as well as Robert, who Bob said had also kindly offered to help out, Scott, who I’d not met before, was also there. Robert flies a very pretty yellow Easy Raider and Scott a flex wing, a Flash II Alpha I think. I was really pleased that they were there because I didn’t really know what to expect when collecting MYRO’s wings from Canterbury and trailering them over the Maidstone except I knew that the more hands there were, the easier it would be.

Rosie’s trailer hadn’t moved from the spot where I left it back in June of last year so when we went to pull it out, I shouldn’t have been surprised when we found that one wheel was seized solid. Scott suggested that the problem was only a brake and after I’d found a large block of wood and given the wheel a few whacks with it, we did indeed hear the sound of the brake springing off.

If there had only been two of us, it would have been a tricky job to get MYRO’s wings down off the hangar wall where they had been hanging since August 2008 and onto the trailer, but with four of us it was easy. There are two wooden boxes fixed to the trailer top to take the AX3’s wheels and I thought that if the wings were stood on the trailer to the inside of these, tied together and tied down in an inverted ‘V’ with plenty of padding, they wouldn’t be able to move very much on the journey. This is how it looked with the wings loaded up.

But as for the wings not shifting, I couldn’t have been more wrong. We stopped as we left the airfield and even with the small number of bumps we’d been over, there had already been some movement. So we adjusted and tightened the ropes, carried on and stopped again before we turned onto the A2. I watched the wings as we drove and was horrified to see how much they were being moved every time a large lorry or other vehicle overtook us as a result of the massive amount of air they displaced 😯

And it was just my luck that a ferry had obviously recently docked at Dover because they came past us one after another. We had to stop several times because I was very concerned about the padding moving so much that the wing fabric covering was damaged and I thought we had succeeded but unfortunately, after we’d turned off the M2 motorway on which we were unable to stop, and were able to check, I found that we had completely lost a couple of the large foam rubber pads and there was a small nick on one leading edge. This was such a pity because up to then, both wings had been perfect but fortunately the damage is not too bad and will be almost unnoticeable when I’ve had a chance to repair it.

One of the aileron edges also got a little nick on it when someone opened the tailgate without looking but as far as I could see when we unloaded the wings and temporarily put them into a hangar at Linton, those were the only two spots of damage on them, so that was not too bad. Pity though 😕

After that we all enjoyed a brew and one of Bob’s double fried egg rolls and we then left to pick up MYRO’s fuselage from my garage. This was a doddle compared to the nightmare of trailering the wings because with the main wheels in the two wheel boxes on the trailer, it was an easy matter to tie MYRO down really tightly, as you can see in the next two pics.

I would imagine that these will be the last pictures that will ever be taken of MYRO outside my garage where it has lived for the past 10 months or so. This made for a rather nostalgic moment for me, but I have to say that I was glad that the time had finally arrived 🙂

It didn’t take long to get MYRO to Linton and it was a great moment for me when we lifted it off the trailer to see it back in its natural environment, on an airfield. It was so much more pleasing to see it standing outside a hangar rather than my garage as you can see from the last two pics for this post.

By this time the day was beginning to take its toll on me and I have to confess that I was beginning to feel pretty tired. I was therefore very grateful indeed when Paul agreed to let me push MYRO into a back corner in his hangar where he said it could stay until I get it re-rigged and the wings back on. I had hoped that that would be tomorrow (Sunday) but earlier today I checked the box of rigging parts that were given to me with MYRO and I found that the four main wing fixing bolts are missing. So as I will have to order those from P & M on Monday, I may as well replace all of the rigging pins as well and do a proper job. This means that I won’t be able to do the re-rigging until next weekend and I’ll give Paul a ring tomorrow to let him know. I hope he’ll let me leave MYRO in his hangar in the meantime, but I think he will.

It’s on. The plans have been made. I spoke to Bob today and it’s all set. MYRO will be leaving home to move to Linton tomorrow morning.

When I first started work on MYRO all those months ago I always knew that the time had to come eventually but now that it’s nearly here, I can hardly believe it. In some ways it’ll be a relief, knowing that the seemingly never-ending schedule of jobs has almost come to an end, but it doesn’t feel like that. Not quite yet anyway. After all, it’ll be no small task to safely load and shift the wings from Canterbury and the fuselage from my garage to be reunited at Linton. I’m more concerned about the wings than the fuselage because having already trailered the fuselage from Broadstairs to my home, I know how to do it. But the wings are an unknown quantity. I think I know how I’ll do it – I’ll stand them on the trailer leaning together in an inverted ‘V’ and hope that with sufficient padding they’ll make the journey unscathed. It would be terrible if at this late stage the wing fabric got damaged or some other awful event befell them, even though they’ll be insured from now on 😯

So this evening I made the final preparations. I wheeled MYRO’s fuselage out of the garage and vacuumed the cabin interior, scrubbed the vinyl seat backs, cushions and headrests, gave the floor a whipe-over and pumped the tyres up. Then I refitted the headrests and the interior Ultralam trim neither of which have been inside MYRO the whole of the time it’s been in my garage. I was very pleased with the final result. The pics are not very good because by the time I’d finished it was already pretty dark. But here they are by way of a momento more than anything else.

If everything goes to plan, as I’m sure it will, the next pictures I post will show MYRO in it’s natural environment – on the airfield. I’m looking forward to that very much 🙂

Well, to all intents and purposes, anyway. There will always be the odd job that will need doing, but all of the major work that I wanted to do at home has now been completed.

I popped out first thing to buy the parts that I needed from a car accessory shop to join the rubber tubes that connect the two tanks. I was very pleased to find exactly what I wanted and in no time at all, the job was done. Here’s how it looked.

Quite tidy eh? 😉

There is an area of Ultralam around and under the fuel filler cap that over the years has been affected by spillage of fuel. This has resulted in the Ultralam surface lifting slightly from the underlying fabric and I had been wondering for some time how I should deal with it. In fact I already knew that to save mucking about, I’d cover it with some strips of that nice wide red gaffer tape that I have. So I did and it made a fine job too. The advantage is that the underlying surface is now fully protected against any further fuel spills and the elements and should I wish to replace the tape at any time, although it sticks like the proverbial 😆 it can be carefully removed without causing any damage.

Then I did a little more filing of the screen plastic around the fuselage tubes until I was totally happy that there is no contact and afterwards went around smoothing the cut edges of the plastic where necessary with some very fine wet-and-dry paper on a small wood block.

And that was it. Job done. Now all I have to do is remind Jeremy at LTS (who distributes Arplast props in the UK) that I still need the bolts for MYRO’s prop, get the tail plane back on and MYRO will be ready to go off to Linton. I was chatting to Bob on the phone today about that and he very kindly offered to help by towing the trailer and MYRO with his 4 x 4. This is a fantastic offer and I am so grateful as with the field being so wet, I wouldn’t be able to use my stepson’s estate for fear of bogging down and carving up the grass surface.

I can now see a light at the end of the tunnel and it really is so exciting after all the work I’ve done 😀

It was a fine flying day today on Good Friday here in the South East, despite what the forecast originally predicted. We had a couple of showery bursts first thing this morning but these cleared away and the rest of the day was fine and dry, albeit a little chilly. So that gave me the chance to finish the installation of the auxiliary tank. As I said last time, the tanks are connected via a ‘T’ piece in the water test drain in the main tank, and here’s a pic showing how the connection I put in ended up looking.

Quite neat I thought – I’m very pleased with it 🙂 Here’s a pic of the corresponding connection into the bottom of the auxiliary tank.

I had to finish threading the two vertical suspension straps around the seat frame today and after I’d done that I was able to drop the tank into position in the four webbing straps that support it and hold it in position. This is how it then looked.

By this time the job was almost done, but not quite. The main tank has a breather that exits the fuselage under the wing on the passenger side and obviously the auxiliary tank has to have a breather too. It came with a long transparent plastic pipe for this purpose and I decided the neatest way to do it was to connect it into the main tank’s breather using a plastic ‘T’ piece. It worked very well and looked quite neat, as you can see below.

Finally, here’s the finished job.

With the outer sections of the belts repositioned on both sides so they passed over the tops of the tanks, in the end it looked a pretty good job. It’s a pity that the slits that had previously been cut in the pilot seat cover to take the straps for an auxiliary tank are a bit untidy. I’ll have to see whether I can make them a bit neater somehow 😉

I forgot to mention this before. Rosie told to me when we last flew together that Ron Riley, MYRO’s first owner, recently died. I didn’t know Ron and I wish I’d had the chance to meet him and share a few old stories and anecdotes about MYRO with him. Sadly that won’t be possible now.

RIP Ron and condolences and good wishes to his family and friends.

I’ve just checked the Met Office 5-day weather report for Linton and the following is what I found.

Rain, rain, high winds and more rain. I’ve also checked the Easter weekend forecast on one of my favourite weather sites (metcheck.com) and they say, ‘The main question we’re being asked now is will the weather improve for Easter. We’re afraid to report that it is looking unlikely as we’re expecting another Atlantic low to move in by Good Friday, bringing further heavy rain, showers and strong winds with it, and further snow is likely over northern hills. This low then looks set to spend Easter over our shores, keeping the unsettled theme going.‘

So it looks as though my plan to trailer MYRO down to Lynton and maybe even get the wings back on over the long weekend has already been prematurely dashed. I’m really disappointed as I’d hoped so much that this would be the weekend when I’d see MYRO at last move out of my garage, ready for the final push. But it looks as though it is not to be. I suppose I should be used to it my now but I’d very much hoped that this would be something of a special weekend. Oh well… 🙁

Not only that, but it looks as though microlight flyers over the length and breadth of the UK will have to sit it out for the whole of the weekend too. Bet there’ll be a few scowling faces by next Tuesday when most people return to work 😡

There is still a small glimmer of hope, though. Metcheck are suggesting that we in the South-East will be less badly affected by the incoming lows than other parts of the country and that we could get sunshine and dry weather on Easter Sunday and Monday. So I’ll have to monitor the situation closely, but as I will have to borrow both Rosie’s trailer and my stepson’s car (with tow-bar), it will become more tricky to arrange the shorter the notice that I can give 😕

As mentioned in my last post on Saturday, the video’s now in the Video Gallery and below is a direct link to it.

MZEL Video

Thinking ahead to maybe trailering MYRO to Linton next weekend, which is the long four-day Easter weekend of course, I had hoped yesterday to do the last ‘big’ job that I could do at home, namely fit the auxiliary fuel tank. With the clocks going forward, I ‘lost’ an hour but managed to get out there by around lunch time. The first job I did when I got MYRO all those months ago was refit the fuel tank that had been removed. And what a horrible job it was because of limited access, tightness of the holding straps, tubes that stuck out and couldn’t be removed and other things like that. Well, now ironically, in order to do the last job, I had to begin by removing the original fuel tank!

This was because there is a tube that comes out of the bottom of the tank that connects to a fuel water test drain and you have to put a ‘T’ into this to connect to a similar tube on the bottom of the auxiliary tank, thus connecting the tanks in a ‘U-Tube’ arrangement. I decided that I would prefer to make this connection properly from scratch, as it is such an important one (after all, you don’t want fuel to be draining out of a full tank whether on the ground or in the air because of a dodgy connection, do you) which meant taking the tank right out again.

So that’s what I did. In fact, because I’d done the job before and knew what to expect, it wasn’t quite as bad this time around. I got the tank out OK, removed the old base tube and replaced it with one of slightly smaller diameter, which turned out to be much better than how I’d done it previously. I put the ‘T’ piece in very close to the tank outlet because space is very restricted down there and when the tank was replaced, the whole job was much better than what I’d done originally. I then connected a length of tube of the same diameter to the outlet on the other tank because my intention ultimately is join the tubes from each tank roughly at the mid-point of the fuselage behind the seats.

I then got going inserting the webbing straps that will support the auxiliary tank behind the pilot’s seat in the four slits in the seat cover that had already been cut previously by someone and wrapping them around the seat frame so they will hold the tank securely. Easier said than done. I got the two horizontal straps in and a wire in to pull one of the top straps through when, you’ve guessed it, down came the rain. The old enemy had struck again 😐

So that was that – back MYRO had to go into the garage before the downpour became to great and the job will have to be completed later. It’s not one I want to do on an open airfield, so ideally I’ll have to try and get it done sometime this week.

That may not be easy because yet again, the forecast is for a deep depression moving in from the south-west bringing high winds, lots of rain, low temperatures and possibly even a day of snow. Nice 😯

Isn’t it great when a plan comes together exactly as you intended 🙂

Rosie and I agreed yesterday that I’d give her a call at 7.30am this morning and if everything looked good, we’d aim to get airborne by about 9.00am and try to grab what could be the best part of the day. So I did and we actually took off at 9.20. Rosie said that she’d shut up (I was sorely tempted… :grin:) and leave it to me to fly over to our exercise area. Everything went pretty smoothly until the time came to land. For some reason I couldn’t get my feet right on the rudder pedals and although we had a landing that we could walk away from, it was a bit ugly.

Rosie asked what the problem was and when I told her about my feet on the pedals, she gave me a little bit of advice that, after I’d thought about things a bit more myself, proved to be pretty invaluable. So we came round again and this time everything worked out fine and we had a pretty good landing. We did it again and this time we had a greaser. Before I could take off again, Rosie said to slow down and asked if she could get out now. For a minute I thought she meant, ‘Could she take off (ie get out) on the shortish length of runway remaining’ but when she said to turn round and taxi back, I realised that she meant she would get out of MZEL and for me to do it over again by myself.

I was really pleased about this and after she’d got out, I made sure I did a proper full set of pre-take off checks and got MZEL rolling. I was amazed at how different MZEL flew with just one on board. She shot off the ground and whereas before we were turning onto our crosswind leg at around 400 or 500 feet, this time I was at the circuit height of 800 feet. Strangely enough, flying alone I found that it was easier to talk myself around the circuit and do the required actions properly in the correct order. Power-attitude-trim when ascending, attitude-power-trim when descending, power and trim to maintain circuit height and correct airspeed and downwind checks in an unhurried, relaxed way.

On our previous approaches, we’d experienced the usual lift-followed-by-sink and variable crosswinds, sometimes from the right where it was supposed to be coming from and sometimes from the left. Now I don’t know whether I had the same again and just coped with it all without realising or whether the conditions actually were better, but this time I remained totally in control the whole way down. I even tagged the approach speed to within 5 mph for the whole of the approach and that alone felt good. The reward for all this effort was a greaser of a landing that I was really proud of and after not having flown and landed an aircraft alone for more than 25 years the good thing was that it felt natural.

I turned and taxied back to Rosie and she beamed back and congratulated me. I said that she seemed as delighted as I was and not only am I sure she was, but after all these years as an Instructor, I bet she feels the same whenever one of her students solos. In fact I’m sure she does. What a lovely lady she is.

We then had to fly back to the airfield as another student was booked for MZEL. I found my way back and to top an absolutely brilliant day, even though I had to do the usual jiggling over the trees on approach which always throws you off your chosen line, I managed yet another smooth landing.

Rosie said afterwards that she’d been thinking about putting me solo the last time we flew but I said that I hadn’t been pushing for it and anyway, I thought probably the gap after the previous time I had flown was probably a bit too long. She agreed and said that was why she hadn’t – a wise call I think. I was very happy for today to be the day. The other good thing as far as I’m concerned, is that by soloing today, so long as the weather remains reasonable during April and May, I think that my target of doing enough to get at least a Restricted Licence by the end of May should now be quite easily attainable. I just hope that I don’t regret making a statement like that 😕

I couldn’t let the day pass without commemorating it in some way, so I took a couple of shots of MZEL after I’d landed back at the field. These show Glenn, the other student who usually flies Rosie’s C42, getting ready for his flight.

I also took a short movie of MZEL taking off and when I’ve had a chance to load that onto my PC and edit it, I’ll show that as well.

I don’t know how Glenn found MZEL compared to the Ikarus, but one thing’s for sure. An AX3 is a totally different animal to a C42 and I bet he found it a lot harder work to fly 🙂

Just looked at the weather forecast for the next few days. Next week looks as though it will become very unsettled and very COLD again with possible snow 😯

But Saturday could be the lull before the gathering storm (figuratively speaking) with temperatures not too low and winds not too high. Think I’ll have to give Rosie a ring tomorrow. If I don’t, I’m going to start falling too far behind with my hours 😉

… but not my best work I have to say. Anyway, after today I’ve almost finished all the work that I can do on MYRO before it’s moved to the airfield, so that’s a good thing 🙂

After yesterday’s rain, the weather forecast for today was good so I knew that this would be my first opportunity since last year to get MYRO out of the garage and do some of the ‘finishing-off’ work that I mentioned in a recent post (10th March). I wasted an hour or so by going out to buy a solderless nipple that I thought I would need to secure the end of the throttle cable. It seems these things are not so easy to find nowadays and after driving miles, I couldn’t get hold of one. Turned out that as usual, Ebay is the place to try first and save time and petrol but in the event somewhat ironically after all the wasted effort, I didn’t need one anyway 😕

The first job I did was drill holes in the new door plastics for the hinge nuts to go into when the doors are fully opened right back. I drilled small holes first to gauge the positions but even then the upper holes were still further out of position than I would ever have thought when the doors were opened right back and ended up larger than I would have liked after I’d adjusted them. The first pic shows the holes on the pilot’s side, which I did first, with the door closed and the following pic shows the door open.

Like I said, the holes will do the job, but the finished article isn’t anywhere near as pretty as I would have liked. I suppose in a way I should have expected it as it’s been six months since I did any of this kind of work and I need to get my hand in again.

The passenger’s side came out a bit better although there was something else there to think about. It only needed three holes drilling because when that door is opened, one of the hinge nuts hits squarely on one of the pop rivets holding the door plastic to the door cross brace tube. Lucky it does actually, because if it missed and hit the door plastic on top of the cross brace tube, there would be no way to drill a hole for it to go into because it would mean drilling the tube. In time it would inevitably cause damage to the door plastic. Obviously the cross brace tube is in the wrong place but I didn’t know that before. I just hope that the weight of the door on the pop rivet against the hinge nut doesn’t fatigue the door plastic and cause little splits around the rivet head, but there’s not a lot I can do about it, so there’s no point losing sleep at this point in time.

Next the door bottom stiffening brackets. The doors didn’t have these before but I’ve seen similar ones on other AX3s (both MZEL and John’s at Linton) so that confirms in my mind that they are a good idea. MYRO didn’t have them before because the door bottoms seemed fairly stiff and the door plastics hadn’t suffered as a result in those areas. However, I’d cut the tube that I made up to replace the one I stupidly snapped in the pilot’s side door a tad short and I could see the plastic flexing as the door frame tube ends moved slightly away from each other every time the door was closed. And then back again when it was opened – so it was obvious that in time the flexing would cause splits in the plastics around the nearby rivet heads. I thought that the best way to deal with this would be to pop rivet a small aluminium bridging strap between the ends of the tubes and indeed that’s what I did today.

The passenger’s side bracket went on not too badly but the pilot’s side one didn’t. Obviously that would be the one that had to go wrong because that’s the one that needed the strap the most. The first rivet that I put in didn’t sit down tightly enough, which of course, defeated the whole object. So I had to drill and cut the rivet back out again, breaking several small drills in the process and scuffing the visible surface of the bracket up with the hacksaw blade. I became resigned at that point to the fact that everything would be a bit of a battle today 🙄

The passenger side bracket is shown in the following pic.

By the way, the picture makes the edge of the door plastic look very jagged for some reason. It isn’t like that really but I’ll be taking another look at all the edges and giving them a light rub with wet and dry to make sure that they are smooth to help prevent cracks starting.

The next job was securing the throttle cable end onto the pilot’s side fuselage tube inside the cabin. This is essential as otherwise there’s no way the throttle would work when the throttle lever is activated. I was relieved when this job went smoothly and the following pic shows the finished result.

The last thing I could do before it began to get dark was deal with the screen plastic slots where the fuselage tubes pass through to connect to the engine mount attachment points. I knew after I put the new screen on last year that it was a bit tight in a couple of points in those slots but I only got to thinking seriously about it after flying MZEL last weekend.

MYRO only really had one ‘bad’ crack in the screen I had removed and Rosie had dealt with it by drilling tiny holes in the ends of the small cracks that were branching out from it to stop them spreading. So the crack was more of an unsightly distraction than a structural problem. However, last Saturday I noticed that MZEL had already developed far more cracks than MYRO had and these almost all practically without exception had starting points where the screen touched against either a tube or some other small obstacle, even a cable tie. So today I resolved to make sure that my new screen had no touching points at all.

I had to do this by trimming parts of the plastic edges away with a Stanley knife and then smoothing the edges down again with a small file. Once again the gremlins got me and I managed to inflict small scratches in the plastic on both sides above the slots that the tubes pass through. I suppose after my earlier experiences I just had to expect that such a thing might happen. The final pic below shows the slot on the pilot’s side with it’s little scratch visible 😯

And so the day ended. The next job will be to fit the second fuel tank. Then all I’ll need to do is fit the prop and refit the tail plane assembly before moving MYRO off to Linton. Can’t come soon enough I can tell you 😉

Before doing a few practice landings yesterday in MZEL, we had to chase the sheep off as usual with a low pass. Then the idea was to land and taxi around a bit in their general direction to make sure that they got the message and kept over to the side of the field away from the runway. Sheep being a flock animal like to stick together in a group if there’s any danger about so with the main flock away over to the left of the runway, even the ones over to the right get the message and rush over to join their mates.

Except yesterday one porky little baa-lamb decided to be a bit different and give us both a shock. She was the one who was farthest away from us over to the right of the field and when she noticed that all of her friends had left her behind, her little legs were a blur as she raced across to catch up with them. She was about thirty or forty yards in front of us, racing from our right to left when suddenly just as she reached the runway, she turned sharp left and came racing straight towards us and the spinning prop. Apart from the fact that she was going to hurtle into the prop, if she had done she would then have ended up in our laps and my heart literally came into my mouth as I just couldn’t believe it. Then in the last fraction of a second just as she was about to hit the prop, she dodged to her right and ran down the left side of the aircraft just missing the wing struts. Then she promptly turned again and ran off to join the rest of the flock.

Believe you me, it was a real brown trousers moment let alone a bit of an eye opener because I’ve always been used to sheep running the other way and I never expected that they could ever be any kind of a threat. Now I know different I’ll be a bit more careful clearing them off in future 😯

Watched the weather closely all week and by Thursday it looked as though Saturday would be a good day. Surprise! 😯

So I phoned Rosie on Friday and we agreed to touch base again this morning, which dawned slightly overcast with only a light wind in my neck of the woods. We decided to go for 2 o’ clock and by the time I left home it was warm and even a bit sunny. So I foolishly decided not to bother taking my fleecy jacket and gloves. I realised that this was a mistake as soon as I got out of the car at the airfield which, being closer to the coast, was still overcast and very chilly. Made a note to remember in future that if you take something, you can decide not to use it and just leave it in the car. But if you don’t take it……. 😕

Rosie was off flying and when she got back we had to fit a new battery on MZEL as the old one had died over the Winter. We eventually took off at 4.00pm and it was really great right from the start. Yes, it was chilly even though I’d added a couple of extra layers, but the flying was excellent. On almost every previous occasion that I’ve flown the AX3, conditions have been either cool and windy or hot and thermic. In either case it has been difficult to repeat training exercises in consistent conditions, as I’ve mentioned in previous postings. But today was completely different, in fact it was exactly as you might wish it to be. No nasty updrafts, cross-winds or roll-overs on approach, no excessive lift giving you an unwanted 200 foot climb on downwind, in fact nothing too nasty at all. Lovely 🙂

The result was that I was able to enjoy one and a half hours of total training pleasure. To start off with, I did a bit of general handling as I actually haven’t flown since April last year. Amazingly, I soon felt that I was ‘back in the groove’ much of which I put down to the benign weather conditions. Then we did circuits and landings (after clearing the sheep from the training strip), first with powered approaches and then with glides. And although not all of them were pretty, unlike when we had the more tricky conditions, this time my landings were more or less OK. Great 🙂

The time eventually came to return home and surprisingly, it was only then that I really began to feel the cold! It’s surprising how you can be distracted when you are concentrating and especially if you are having fun at the same time! By this time it was becoming a bit murky and lights were beginning to appear on cars and buildings below. Even so we soon found our way back and this time I just knew that my last landing of the day would be a good one. And so it was 😀

All in all, it was probably the most enjoyable and satisfying microlighting day that I’ve had. And the coldest too, but that didn’t matter one little bit 😆

I took the dog out this morning and came back freezing as the chill wind has a really cutting edge to it. I then got to thinking and realised that MYRO has been standing in my garage for 6 months now, just standing and doing nothing. And in fact not only have I done nothing at all to it in that whole time, I’ve also hardly even opened the garage door 🙁

When I think that it took less than 4 months to complete all the work I’ve done on it, this is a really frustrating situation. The reason, of course, is the old enemy – the weather. We didn’t really have that good a Summer, did we, so I think I did pretty well to get as much done on MYRO as I did. But to think that another 6 months have since vanished without trace is a bit shocking. First we had that awful stormy, wet spell in November (remember the tragedy of Cockermouth in Cumbria?) and since December we’ve had almost non-stop bitterly cold weather. That’s nearly a quarter of the year. I can’t remember a Winter that seems to have gone on for so long – and we are officially in Spring now too 😯

I’d like to get MYRO moved down to Linton but there’s no point until I’ve done the few remaining jobs that need to be done before it goes. These are to add little aluminium brackets to the bottoms of the door tubes to add stiffness and prevent the plastics flexing, drill 4 small holes in each of the door plastics for the hinge bolts to go through when the doors are fully opened and secure the end of the throttle cable to the fuselage tube inside the cabin. I might as well install the second tank as well as it’ll be easier and more convenient to do it at home rather than in the open on the airfield. And finally, the day before I move MYRO, I’ll also need to fit the tail plane assembly and the prop.

I think I’ll have to make a start this week end no matter how cold it is, and the forecast says it will be too. And there’s also a chance of some wintery showers to add to the overall delight, so that will be nice. But unless I do start to get things moving, the danger is that I’ll be looking back in a few weeks time and still saying the same things.

Oh, and don’t forget, I also need to fly and get my GST done by the end of May. Hey ho…. 😕

I advertised a short time ago for a set of outdoor covers for MYRO and although I wasn’t offered a full set, I did end up buying an engine cover, which arrived yesterday. I’m very pleased with it – it’s an original Cyclone one with a Cyclone badge on it, tailored to fit over the whole engine, carbs, gearbox and exhaust and incorporating blade covers for the original two-blade prop. It looks as though it will be very weather-proof. I’ll be fitting the three-blade Arplast prop and I think that the tailored blade covers should fit over two of the Arplast’s blades. If that is the case, I’ll have to think about having a separate cover made up for the third blade. It will be worth it because I’ve been advised that the Arplast is an excellent prop but with brittle blades, so as the blades on mine are in very good condition, they are worth protecting 🙂

The engine cover came with a second tank kit which I also bought off the same seller. This also looks to be in pretty good condition. Unlike MYRO’s original tank though, it’s rather black in colour and before I fit it, I’ll see if there’s anything inside it causing this that I can deal with. The tank is attached to the back of the left hand seat by webbing straps in a similar way to the original one. Unfortunately two are missing but I’ve already sourced suitable replacements from Ebay.

The other thing is that although there is an official Mod for fitting the second tank, I have no paperwork or ‘provenance’ for it. However, because ‘it is what it is’, I do not think this will be a problem and that it will be ultimately approved by inspection 😉

Having the twin tanks will be very useful. When carrying a passenger, it will not be possible to fill both up to the brim without exceeding the maximum permitted weight. However, when flying alone it will be possible to fill both up to give a total endurance of something between three and four hours. This will make MYRO much more capable of completing longer cross-country flights without stopping. Rather slow, yes, but without stopping, which will suit me I think. It will make it possible, for example, to fly to the Isle of Wight safely in one hop from Linton, so I will be able to look forward to joining the rest of the guys when they do the trip, as Bob has already mentioned.

Now all I need is for the weather to make a change for the better as I don’t want to be paying for my space at Linton for too long without being able to use it, do I 😕

As I type this, rain is lashing down outside – again. We’re expecting buckets of rain and very high winds today as the result of a severe low that has been moving north-east from the Iberian peninsula and battering Northern Europe. We’ve had so much rain again this Winter and coupled with the snow, grass airfields over much of the country are pretty much waterlogged. Rosie said yesterday that flying has been impossible for the last few weeks for that reason even before you take into account the abysmal weather we’ve had down here in the South-East. In fact the South has probably fared worse than the North this Winter as although they have had snow in northern parts, they’ve still managed to get in quite a bit of flying because of the clear (but cold) periods they’ve had in between. That really hasn’t been the case down here where we’ve had so much more rain, low cloud, murk and gloom.

So I’ve been considering what to do about MYRO. Bob at Linton has suggested moving MYRO in there as soon as possible but as it will be standing outside, albeit covered by a tarpaulin, I wonder if that’s the best thing to do at present. Bearing in mind that the jobs I need to do from now on will all involve working outside in the open, I won’t be able to do anything all the while the weather is like this. And when you also consider that as soon as MYRO goes into Linton it will have to be insured for Ground Risks, I think it’s better to leave it where it is until we can see that there will be an upturn in the weather.

It has to happen some time, surely…….. doesn’t it? 😕

I popped down to Rosie’s today to do my two outstanding exams – Meteorology and Navigation. I did Met first and ended up with 80 or 85% (can’t remember the figure – will have to check with Rosie) which I was very pleased and satisfied with. Can’t say the same about Nav though.

With that, I just scraped through with a pass of 70%. That meant I got 6 questions out of 20 wrong, which I don’t think is really a very good result. On the plus side, I have to admit that I didn’t do very much preparation for the exam and to be honest, I haven’t done any serious navigation for over 20 years. But the main reason why I’m disappointed with myself is that I threw away at least 4 questions because either I was stupid and put down the wrong answer when with a couple of moments more thought I actually knew the correct one or I failed to spot the information needed to answer the question in front of me on the chart used for the question or in the supporting AIP information supplied with it 🙁

Anyway, I’m through and it’s something I can now tick off the list. All I need to worry about now is the flying, the easy bit you might say. Rosie and I chatted afterwards. No effort wasted there, then, Rosie said about Nav and wasn’t she right. 🙂

We agreed that I must now press on with the flying at full speed, whenever the weather permits, so I can get to GST standard by the end of May and achieve my Restricted licence. So that’s what I’ll do and then I can upgrade it to a full Unrestricted licence at my leisure in the few weeks following, as I mentioned in my last post. I may have only just crept in as far as Nav is concerned, but the door is now open to press on just as I planned. 😉

I got to thinking – I did my first three exams in May last year so if I don’t get my microlight licence by the end of May this year, I’ll have to sit them all again as they are only valid for 12 months! If I did have to sit them again, that would be the third time as, of course, I passed them all years ago when I got my original Private Pilot’s Licence. Apart from being really annoying this would be verging on the ridiculous. Having to cover the microlight syllabus completely from scratch is bad enough but this would be getting really stupid. 😯

What is it about the bureacracy in this country? In other countries you can buy a microlight and just fly it without any instruction or licencing if you want to. In this country, even though you are already a qualified pilot with several hundred hours under your belt, you have to go through the whole training gamut all over again as though you are a complete rookie.

I’ve arranged with Rosie to do my two outstanding exams, Meteorology and Navigation, this coming Saturday. It would be a fine thing if I failed either being as I used to regularly fly our Piper Cherokee down to Zurich! I’ve decided that I will then go for a Restricted NPPL(M) by the end of May. With it you can only fly solo (ie without a passenger) in good weather conditions to a distance of no more than 8 miles from your home airfield. This would not be anything like adequate for me in the long run, but the whole point is that it preserves the status of your exams. Then, after completing the necessary cross country flights at your convenience when the weather has improved, you can upgrade the Restricted to a Full NPPL(M) and enjoy the unrestricted privileges of the full licence.

If I don’t do this, there is no chance that I’ll be able to complete the requirements for the Full NPPL(M) by May, and quite honestly, I may even have a problem completing the Restricted in this timescale unless the weather takes a considerable turn for the better. 😕

So that’s my plan. I’ll let you know how the exams go on Saturday and who knows, if the weather’s good enough, I might even be able to fit an hour or so’s flying in. 🙂

Went down to the field yesterday and spent most of the day there. Not many there but you don’t need many, do you, to have a good chin-wag and a few laughs 🙂

Bloomin’ cold so not much flying going on. I was very pleased to meet the other AX3 owner, John, for the first time, so we had a lot to talk about. John hadn’t flown since December so he thought it was a good idea to get his aircraft warmed up and get current again with a short flight. I can tell you that I was somewhat envious to say the least when he taxied out and took off on the short winter runway 😕 Even though it was a bit soft and soggy, he still needed barely half of it.

By the time I departed in the late afternoon I have to say I was glad to get back in the car and get warm again. But the best bit was enjoying that old familiar feeling again of being back on an airfield and enjoying the company of fellow pilots. There’s nothing quite like it, trust me 😉

Brilliant news. A few days ago I placed an ad on AFORS (Aircraft For Sale web site) for hangar space or parking in Kent and got a call within a day or so from Bob at Linton near Maidstone. He invited me down to see the strip for myself and talk about it, which I did this morning.

Very cold, but although the snow mentioned in my previous post below did hit East and South Kent, it didn’t affect where I live or, luckily, Linton. No flying going on but got a warm welcome and a cup of coffee straight away, so a great start. We chewed the fat for a couple of hours or so and I had a look round. It’s just what I want – very informal, only a few aircraft there, not much by way of ‘facilities’ (which suits me fine), the sort of place where you get stuck in and help each other out. I liked it immediately and we ended up by shaking hands on a deal.

So I’ve now got a space, outside parking only initially, for MYRO as from March and can start making some plans. It’ll be a good place to finish assembling MYRO and get everything done that’s necessary to get it permitted and back into the air. I can actually make arrangements to get MYRO’s wings there more or less as soon as possible as there’s space enough for them in a hangar so they’ll be there ready for me to press on.

So much now to do, including finishing off getting my licence! But at least now I’ve got a way forward and some more clear targets to aim at. I can hardly wait 🙂

By the way – anyone know a good bank to rob 😉

Oh yeah – didn’t mention….. it’s a double celebration today actually because it’s also my birthday. Best one I’ve had for a while 😀

For several days now, we’ve been bogged down in the awful murky, soggy weather that I mentioned in my last post, below. Well, it looks as though the ‘weather deadlock’ that I described is breaking down – but not, unfortunately, in the way that we might like. Take a look at the weather warning that has just been issued for South-East England (Kent, Medway and East Sussex).

I’m beginning to despair. This is so frustrating – will I ever get the chance to fly this new comms kit? 🙁

Well, the intensely cold weather we had to endure for several weeks past now looks to be behind us, at least down here in South-East England. But in its place, we are on the receiving end of another kind of weather which is proving to be just as frustrating from a flying point of view.

For several days now we have had dull, depressing, misty, almost drizzle-like conditions with almost everything outside being dripping wet and with permanent puddles underfoot. Horrible. Apparently it’s because we have a warm front from the south-west coming up against a cold front from north-east and the collision point is not moving as neither will give-way to the other. And the collision point is a line that diagonally bisects the country, so it’s still cold up-north but mild and soggy down-south.

It’s totally unflyable in the South, of course, because of the low cloudbase and visibility problems, which are exacerbated because of the very light winds we have – practically zero actually. This is doubly frustrating for me because although I can’t do anything with MYRO, I desperately need to get up in the air, probably in MZEL. The reason for this is very exciting.

Since before Christmas I’ve had in my possession a complete, brand new comms kit. And not only is it brand new, it’s also brand new for the UK and isn’t on sale here – not yet, anyway. Heres a pic of what I’m talking about.

The kit is for a fixed-wing aircraft although the pic shows a flexwing type PTT button. If I fit it into MYRO I’ll probably chop it and modify it with another button I already have that will fit into the top of the joystick. I really want to fly the kit because its spec is superb and I very much want to try it out. I’ll tell you a bit more about it. First the headsets.

The kit designer and manufacturer is actually big in military equipment and they say that the level of noise reduction sets a new standard for this class of equipment. I can’t wait to find out. The headsets come with very well designed noise-reducing mics incorporating noise-cancelling elements, a noise chamber for even greater effectiveness and wind-resistant foam shields. The ear cups have very soft Nappa leather seals and there’s an individual sound level control on each headset. The left cup houses 4 x AAA Li-Ion batteries giving 120 hour life and to cap it all, each headset comes with a free fleece headset bag.

The headsets are fitted with RJ45 plugs to connect straight into the system’s interface, which I’ll tell more about in a moment, but with adaptors they are compatible with other systems, such as Lynx. So what about the interface?

It’s called VxBox, and although it’s quite small, measuring only 73x50x25mm and weighing only 65 grams, it’s packed full of very desirable features. For a start it’s a superb intercom system with a beautiful noise-reduced ambiance. However, the last thing a pilot wants is for his passenger to start chatting just when a RT message comes in or when he needs to make a transmission, so there’s auto-passenger muting to deal with those situations. It’s switchable actually, so in a training environment, for example, an instructor could retain the ability to transmit as and when necessary. VxBox also comes with audio-in and audio-out. Audio-in is via a 3.5mm jack so an i-Pod, for example can be directly connected and played during flight. But what if a RT message comes in, you ask? Simple – there’s auto-muting when receiving and transmitting radio messages, and for 6 seconds afterwards to cover exactly that eventuality. And audio-out? One of the latest things that every pilot wants to do is be able to create videos of their flights to share with friends and family and put on YouTube. Up to now it’s been quite a complex thing to set up, but now that’s all over, because VxBox has an amplified RCA output that can connect to any camcorder with a RCA input (ie most modern ones). When connected, it sends everything – intercom chat, RT messages and even audio-in if it’s playing. Amazing – so now you can forget all those questions about leads, compatibility, and goodness knows what. It’s simple plug-and-play!

VxBox connects one or two headsets to either a Vertex VXA-220 transceiver or an Icom 6/24, 5/23 or 3/22. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve gone for the Vertex which I think is the best transceiver of its type on the market and the plug shown is for that model. However, the kit can also be supplied already fitted with the correct plug(s) for the Icom models I’ve mentioned above (but not the now obsolete 2/20).

And last but not least, the power supply. This is called the PowerBox stabilised power supply.

Vertex transceivers have a very long battery life but the same cannot be said for the Icoms for which an external power supply is essential. Even with a Vertex, though, a separate power supply is advisable for peace of mind when touring or for anything much more than local hops. One of the problems, of course, is that different transceivers work at different voltages. The power supply I have is for the Vertex VXA-220 so it’s set to 9.6V and has a jack plug to match. The various Icom models all have different voltages and variations in plugs which I didn’t have to worry about. The PowerBox is of very advanced design and while again being small in size, only 73x50x25mm and 140 grams in weight, it incorporates a heavy-duty choke, voltage regulator and noise filter. It comes with a bare power lead to which you can fit a DIN plug, a car cigar lighter plug or another connector of choice. When I fit it into MYRO I’ll be fitting a DIN plug to use one of the new DIN sockets I put into the panel in the Summer.

The whole point of this kit is that like most of the other similar kits now being used in the UK, in order to conform to the rules (without going into more detail) it mustn’t be a permanent fit in the aircraft. This is why it comes ready for a plug to be connected to the power supply lead and some large strips of Velcro so it can be stuck onto the panel or wherever when in use and removed after the flight. A good thing for security and it’s certainly small enough to fit in even the smallest single-seat aircraft!

So that’s the latest news. I can’t wait to get into the air with this kit and hopefully I won’t have too much longer to wait. I’ll let you know how it performs when I do.