And it is, too 🙂

Mark at Galaxy Microlights said that MYME’s former owner had told him that the engine was given a full service only a short time before the accident happened. However, when we checked the Engine Logbook, although the service was recorded, there were few other details. The service was done by none other than Bill Sherlock who is not only a very well-known figure in the microlight world but was also the original UK distributor for AX3s.

So I gave him a ring today. What a nice chap he is. I told him about the service that was done in July 2008 and he immediately turned the details up there and then from his records. These confirmed, as he remembered, that the gearbox was given a 100 hour service and that the engine was not only given a full 300 hour service but that a new crankshaft assembly was also fitted. This is extremely good news because that work alone sets you back something like £1500 for parts and labour. He also said that the engine was particularly well looked after because MYME’s former owner is a personal friend of his, but after talking with him my guess is that he looks after every customer’s engine in just the same way – ie very well 😉

I asked Bill if he could send me over a copy of the Job Sheet so I could keep it with the Engine Logbook and he did no more than immediately whip me off an email with a copy of the Job Sheet attached that I received a few minutes later. In my short time in microlights I’ve met and been in touch with some amazing people but some people truly stand out, when I think of the help I received sorting out my Our Trike gauge and wiring problems and now with the start of my efforts to get MYRO back flying again. I hope I get the chance to make some sort of contribution of my own to the microlighting community in the future.

Or rather it was, that blew so hard one night recently that G-MYME, a pretty little blue AX3 that originally looked a lot like G-MZEL that’s shown in my pics of a couple of posts ago, ended up in a tree! Yes seriously 😯

But it was that same ill wind that did me an enormous favour, because poor MYME then eventually ended up in the hands of Mark Jones, the great bloke who runs Galaxy Microlights down in Wiltshire. As well as being a BMAA Inspector and experienced microlight engineer, one of the things that Mark also does is break damaged microlights for spares. It was Mark’s ad that I saw on Monday that I mentioned in my last post.

And so it was that this morning I decided to take the rest of the day off and drive down to Mark’s workshop which is in the Warminster area. I had definitely reserved all of MYME’s engine stuff (engine, gearbox, exhaust etc) but I wanted to see what else there was that I might be interested in. Rosie said that she’d like to have a wheel as a spare but unfortunately both of those had already been snapped up.

After the usual chit-chat and gossip, we dragged MYME (or what was left of her) out of the open-sided barn where she was being kept and into Mark’s workshop where we could get a good look at her and remove the bits that I wanted.

I wanted the instrument panel because, as can be seen in the earlier cockpit pics, MYRO’s had had a large rectangular area cut out at some time, probably for a GPS or something like that. MYME’s was relatively undamaged and putting that in instead would save repairing MYRO’s which would probably not look right afterwards anyway. Mark wanted to keep a couple of engine temp gauges but he kindly left the others in. After consulting Rosie on the mobile I thought it would be a good idea to remove the panel complete with wiring so I decided that in fact I’d take the whole of MYME’s wiring loom. So instead of just cutting it out, Mark carefully removed it. I also wanted the electric fuel pump so we left all the plastic pipes attached to that as well. I’ll show some pics in the next post of all the stuff I got from Mark, but here are some shots of poor MYME after we’d finished.

In these shots, we’d already removed the rear fuselage cover, from the cockpit back to the tail. Before we took it off, MYME looked quite ‘healthy’, but after we’d removed it, it was obvious that in fact she would never have flown again because her main top tube was distinctly banana shaped. Also. it was amazing how many bolts that we removed had been bent by the extraordinary forces that she’d been subjected to by being blown up into the tree!

What will probably be the last pics of MYME look a bit sad, but there you are, that’s life if you’re a microlight I guess. But the other side of the coin is that it’s because of what happened to poor MYME, good ole MYRO will be back in the skies again in all its glory in a few weeks or months time.

And thanks again to Mark Jones at Galaxy Microlights.

Look, don’t say this too loudly because whenever I decide to do something, something else that’s out of my control then usually happens to put the mockers on it. And I’m not just being paranoid either … or am I? 😕

Here’s what happened.

We’ve just enjoyed a very pleasant May Day Bank Holiday here in the UK. The weather was forecast to be fine and calm yesterday morning with the wind backing to WSW and freshening later in the day. So I decided on Sunday to see if Rosie could fit in a flight first thing, if it didn’t mess up her plans for the rest of the holiday. She said she’d see how she felt early in the morning because she was suffering from a painful knee which would make it difficult for her to fly. Anyway, she phoned first thing yesterday to say that she couldn’t do it, so that was the end of that.

So while finishing my breakfast and enjoying another cup of tea, I was browsing the microlight ads as I often do. And there near the top was a new ad – Breaking AX3, most parts available, POA. The ad said that a low hours, recently serviced Rotax 503 engine was available so I rang the number. Yup, it was a 503 DC/DI (dual carbs, dual ignition) and yes, there was also an electric start, and the gearbox, and a complete exhaust, and the carbs all in good condition. This is exactly what MYRO (yes, my old mate G-MYRO which I still have a great fondness for) needs to get back into the air. This was too good to miss.

I’m fed up with keep putting things on hold. I phoned Rosie and we agreed that I’d buy MYRO off her next month subject to getting the engine etc at the right price. Then I phoned the AX3 seller and did a deal.

So MYRO is now back on again and this time I’m committed. I’ll be going down to the West Country in a day or so to pick up the engine and see what else I might need. Rosie tells me that in addition to the items I’ve already mentioned I’ll need the battery and mount plus the cabling, as MZEL which now has the MYRO kit, was originally a pull-start machine. I’ll also need the fuel primer pump and pressure gauge and I’m thinking I might take a look at the screen and instrument panel too, as although not essential, MYRO’s ones had both seen better days and this might be a one-off chance to replace them economically.

This is really exciting. I was so sad that the MYRO thing fell through last Winter but hopefully this time it will all come together. I’ve got to start thinking about clearing my garage again (that was the only source of relief when MYRO fell through before) so I can get the space I need to work. The garage is very small, but I’ll manage. I have no idea what the timing will be and bear in mind that the priority will still be to see if we can sell Our Trike now the season has begun.

I doubt I’ll fly again this week because the weather forecasts are not good (the old enemy, high winds again) and Rosie is then going away on hols for a week. So I’ve got that time to get everything organised. I doubt I’ll be able to get MYRO sorted this Summer (but what the heck, who knows..) but at least I can look forward to flying my own aircraft next year.

But shhhhh ….. keep it quiet, will you? 😉

The weather forecast here in the South-East for the remainder of this week is not good so as the TAFs for Manston and Lydd were both excellent, I decided to get another flight in today. The signs were not too hot, though as I approached Canterbury. Although it was supposed to be broken cloud at 1800ft and unlimited visibility with a light but variable wind from the south-west, there was actually a huge bank of thick clag looming up with vis reduced significantly by a misty haze! Shows how quickly things can change when you are near the coast.

However, things had improved by the time I arrived at the field and after fuelling up, carrying out the usual checks etc, pretty soon we were airborne and flying in sunny skies with broken cloud. And that’s when the problems started. Again.

It was about 1.45 pm when we took off so at that time of day, you must expect to get bumps and lift when the sun is out, but nothing like this. It was impossible to trim the AX3 for anything like level flight but that was nothing compared to the approach problems I had. There were huge amounts of lift over the copse of trees on finals coupled with bubbles of turbulence that made it impossible to get the aircraft set up for landing and then hold it right the way down. Now that’s fine when you’re an experienced pilot with a good few microlight hours under your belt, but it’s hopeless for someone in the learning phase, like me.

So I’m becoming very frustrated. Admittedly I’ve had a break of 6 months over the Winter but I really don’t think that I’m making the progress I expect. Part of it is me, of course. I’m a lot older now than I was first time around so I have to expect that re-acquiring physical and mental skills will take longer than it did to acquire them from scratch when I was young. But undoubtedly the conditions in which I’m invariably flying are also playing a major part. It seems whenever we get good weather and the sun comes out, we get these horrendously turbulent conditions. It can’t just be coincidence because it has happened every time.

So what’s the answer? At the moment I don’t know. I can’t carry on like this because constantly struggling to maintain control of a bucking aircraft with crossed controls and goodness knows what is doing nothing to help me regain the skills I’ll need to get my NPPL Microlight Licence, which is after all, the point of it all. I’m fed up with having ‘challenging’ approaches the whole time. I just want to have the flying conditions that will allow me to redevelop and perfect the skills I used to have, to consistently produce a glide or powered approach, on demand, time after time. That’s been impossible up to now. How can it be when you’re set up on final at say, 300 feet with the throttle closed for a controlled landing and suddenly the aircraft becomes a bucking bronco with first one wing up, then the other and then you’re suddenly 50, 100 or even more feet above the correct approach path.

So where do I go from here? At the moment I don’t know. If the conditions are a feature of the area because of the large number of fields and woods and the influence of the sea, then it would make sense to try somewhere else and see if it’s better there. Anyway, I’ll give it a few more tries and see if things get any better, but it’s not doing me any good having a flight and coming away every time feeling annoyed and frustrated. I expected regaining my Licence to be hard work, but enjoyable as well. At the moment. the fun seems to have gone out of it and I don’t think it is meant to be like that.

The weather this week was gorgeous, in most of the UK actually, but especially down here in the South-East. I phoned Rosie last weekend to arrange a flight for Thursday and for once I’d got the weather exactly right. Wednesday was slightly warmer, but then because the sun was hotter, there would probably have been more thermals and turbulence. So I was very happy when I shut my office door just after mid-day and jumped in my car to head for the airfield.

I arrived to find Rosie sitting in the sun enjoying a sandwich lunch, so while she was finishing it off, I gave MZEL a pre-flight. I pulled her out into the middle of the area in front of the hangars where I took these pics.

The Ikarus had been out but MZEL hadn’t flown for quite a few days so I had to check the fuel in the carburettor bowls for water while Rosie did a fuel drain check at the drain point just behind the right undercarriage wheel. All was clear so pretty soon we were all checked and ready to go. I think I mentioned before that I’d made my own AX3 checklist which was a real help. It’s double-sided (so it has large type that I can read without glasses 🙂 ) and laminated, so I can write on it with a chinagraph pencil. That way as well as working as a pre-flight checklist, it can also be used while in the air. Here’s a pic of it.

We back-tracked runway 02 for take off on 20 and pretty soon we were airborne. Take off not too bad but you have to expect to be a bit rusty after a 6-month lay off, because that’s how long it has been. Did a few climbing and descending manoeuvres ahead and in the turn and it felt very good to be back up in the air. Then we went off for a few circuits and landings.

Considering it’s been 6 months, things didn’t go too badly. Not surprisingly, my height control left a bit to be desired and at one time, with the lift that was around, we gained nearly 200 feet on the down-wind leg! After one landing, Rosie suggested we do a hop. A hop is when she takes off, gets us to something like 40 or 50 feet, cuts the engine to idle and asks you to land it back on what’s left of the runway. This was a totally new exercise for me and I have to confess, I was completely unprepared for it. What a disaster! We landed but all over the place and with a thump. Rosie judiciously decided to leave more hops for another time 😕

We did several right and left hand circuits and landings and things began to feel more comfortable as time went on. On one approach we gained an amazing amount of height over the large copse of trees that is there so at Rosie’s suggestion I side-slipped most of it off. I didn’t think I could get enough off and would have gone round, but Rosie said to watch this, and promptly did another huge side-slip in the other direction, which got us low enough to land. It always amazes me how much dynamic energy these little aircraft lose when you level off with power off, compared to say the Group A singles that I used to fly, so you can come in too high (but not too fast, try) and still land when a landing would have been unthinkable in the Group A.

During all this I noticed one thing of serious importance. While Rosie was doing her big side-slip, I found that because of the tightly laced ankle high boots I was wearing, I couldn’t get my right foot on the rudder pedal while it was extended. This means that in those boots, I would be unable, if necessary, to push the rudder pedal far enough to manoeuvre the aircraft, so they will have to go! That’s the last time I’ll wear them for flying – and would you believe, they are the same ones I wore 30 years ago when I first learnt to fly as a young man (yes, wearing 30 year old boots I’m ashamed to say – and it gets worse…. I also wore them while I was gliding a few years ago as well!)

Anyway, we only had enough fuel for about 1 1/2 hours (with a reserve) so eventually we headed back. Total time was 1 hour 20 mins. I said that this was the first occasion since I began flying with her that the weather was as good at the end of the flght as it was when we took off, and I just hope that 2009 continues in the same way. Rosie said that if I wanted, we could refuel and go again, but I decided not to. Just as well. That evening after all those circuits I was knackered 😕

Nipped down to Ken’s late yesterday afternoon with the newly cleaned-up carburettors and had them refitted in under quarter of an hour. Pulled trike and trailer out of the workshop and decided that it would be safest to get Our Trike off the trailer before starting the engine. Then the big moment came. Checked all round to ensure everything clear and flipped the Ignition switch to make it live. The switch promptly broke. 😕

Suppose it was to be expected as it was an old switch and it felt dodgy last time I ran the engine. It’s no big deal.

So what to do? Removed the switch and shorted across the two connections with a short length of heavy wire. Then operated the electric starter. Nothing. Tried again. And again. Still nothing.

Then I had to remove and clean the plugs as it was pretty obvious that if they weren’t already oiled up, they soon would be. Sure enough they were very wet, so cleaned, dried and replaced them.

Then the thought occurred to me. I said to Ken that if you thought about it, the Ignition switch was probably an earth, to stop the plugs sparking (ie a ‘break’ rather than a ‘make’) so I said I’d try it without the link between the switch connections. Turned the starter key and it roared into life! 🙂

So that was it – another hour or so’s tinkering and the engine was running more sweetly than it ever had done. Warmed up, full throttle gave us about 6000RPM (needed for take off, and it was hard holding Our Trike back!) and I could now fully close the choke. And we also had a nice even tick-over at around 1500RPM.

That’ll do me 😉

As I mentioned in my last post, last weekend I nipped down to see what was involved in removing Our Trike’s carburettors and it was so straightforward that I actually came away with them. I decided that as today’s a Bank Holiday for us here (Good Friday, the Friday before Easter), it would be a good time to do the cleaning I want to do with the aim of getting them refitted tomorrow or Sunday (Easter Sunday).

So I got them onto a small table in my conservatory and stripped the first one. Then I decided I’d go and buy the cleaning solvent and other items that I needed to do the job. Usually most of our local shops stay open on Bank Holidays, but not today. I ended up driving miles to a motor accessory shop that’s always open and fortunately, as the first carb was already in bits, managed to get what I wanted.

I couldn’t take any pics while they were in pieces because, quite honestly, my hands were too dirty to pick up my camera, but there were some quite thick deposits in both of the float chambers that I removed. I guess these were as a result of the fuel evaporating time after time over the years and some deposits had fallen off to form small flakes inside the chamber bowls. So it was a job worth doing as these could have worked their way through and caused a fuel blockage. I also stripped all the other parts, thoroughly cleaned them with carb cleaning solvent and made sure the jets and any other holes were clean and clear by running them through, as far as possible, with a small strand of copper wire that I had previously extracted from a short piece of electrical flex.

The job went pretty well and here’s a pic of the final result – a pair of carburettors, lovely and clean, inside and out.

Now need to get hold of two new Jubilee clips to hold the air filters on as the ones being used at present are very poor quality and the screws are slipping before they are fully tight, which is totally unacceptable. Not a problem. Then I have to decide whether to wire-lock them on or leave it to be done later. I’ll probably do it, but although I’ll need to drill tiny holes in the filters to take the wire, I ptobably won’t drill holes in the carbs themselves. Having thought about it, a better approach will be to make up a tiny bracket for each carb to take the wire that will be held on by the float chamber screw that closest to the filter. If I choose the positions carefully, there will always be the option later of drilling an appropriate place on each carb (appropriate = drilling through a solid bit of the carb body and not into a passageway or something important!)

So that was it for today. Now looking forward to getting them back on and running the engine. Tuning them as a matched pair is likely ot be a bit more challenging, though 😕

Well, March has come and gone. It wasn’t much of a month, to be honest. Not much to shout about at all. Had the odd few days of good weather, and even though it was still pretty cold, a flex-wing or two occasionally flew over my house. Wonder what this year has in store?

Just been down to Ken’s and removed Our Trike’s carburettors. They’re now down in my garage and I hope that in the next few days, I’ll be able to strip them and give them a thorough clean. That should hopefully cure the problem of the engine stopping whenever you close the choke.

We’ve been talking about what to do with Our Trike. A few months back I got hold of a trailer and recently Ken had it adapted to take Our Trike. Saw Our Trike on it today for the first time and it looks pretty good. I’ll take some pics later. Just needs a coat of blue Hammerite paint to finish it off and then Trike and Trailer together will make a nice package.

Although they may have increased a bit now that Spring’s here, prices are still at a very low level and even if we get a ‘Ticket’ (Permit to Fly) for Our Trike, there’s no doubt that we’ll not get our purchase price back if we put it on the market and are successful in selling it. So what to do?

There’s an argument that says, as suggested by one adviser, that we should get the whole package completed and looking tidy and then put it on Ebay with a modest reserve to ensure that we don’t end up giving it away. There’s a lot to be said for doing that. It’s been estimated that it could cost us something like a further £600 to cover Registration, Paperwork, Testing and Permitting, and if we then sold it after getting the Permit, we’d have no chance at all of seeing that money back again. So better to sell it as it stands and let the new owner, who would be committed to flex-wings (whereas both Ken and I now want to fly fixed-wings) incur those costs. Seems like a sound suggestion I think.

Anyway, I’ve now got to get the carbs sorted and get them back on again, and hopefully working properly. Ken also says he knows someone who might be interested in taking Our Trike off our hands, but we’ll jump that hurdle a bit later on, when everything’s back on and working.

But it would be a shame to let it go for peanuts as it’s a good-looking old machine. I’d like to have flown it, but I don’t see that happening now. When I’ve got my Licence and am happlily buzzing around in an AX3 or whatever, I don’t think I’ll mind too much, though. 😉

Darling buds be blowed….

Can’t let this go by without making a note of it. The day after the ‘Darling Buds’ post the snow began to fall. I went for an evening out with friends on Saturday and when I left home it had already been snowing for a short time. It’s not often we get enough snow here in South-East England to trouble us too much, but on the way, I found that the roads were already becoming a bit tricky. When it was time to return home, we had a covering of something like 4 or 5 inches and driving home at about 11.30pm I encountered almost blizzard conditions! My friends didn’t even make it back to their house – a long hill which I took a good run at (overtaking some twerp who was crawling up only to eventually get stuck) proved to be too much for them and they turned back and found somewhere to spend the night.

Next day we had about 9 inches of snow outside our house (we are at the highest point in Kent, so we got a bit more than the surrounding areas) and although there has been a bit of a thaw, we’ve still got a fair bit underfoot with more to come in the next few days, apparently. And everyone probably saw in the news how the snow band moved northwards right up as far as Scotland bringing, I’m ashamed to say as a Brit, virtually the whole country to a standstill – pathetic really 😕

One or two days this week have been superb for flying, albeit a bit cold aloft I would imagine. Skies have been absolutely clear blue with very little wind. Marvellous. But I doubt that very many people have been able to get airborne because with all the snow we’ve had, airfields have been totally snowed in I would think. Must have been, because even the large airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton etc) although open now, were closed for quite long periods.

Looks as though I’m going to have wait for the Spring proper before I’ll be able to think about getting back in the air!

Just back from giving the dog his first walk of the day. I noticed that tiny buds are already appearing on the tips of the branches of some of the trees. So despite the Credit Crunch and the turmoil of the global financial crisis, the World will keep turning and life will go on.

Wonder what kind of year 2009 will be for flying? Better than 2008, I hope. Surely it can’t be any worse. I’m going to make ‘Optimism’ my theme for 2009. I think if everyone did the same and stopped talking things down, things would get better a lot quicker.

So Optimism it is then 😀

While I was doing the work to add the new Photo Gallery and Video pages, I happened across a WordPress theme called ‘Apples’. I’ve always loved the ‘Beach House’ theme that I’ve been using up to now but I just found ‘Apples’ so fresh and exciting! I thought about making the change but when I tried it out, I found there were a couple of problems with it.

But persistence has paid off and after tinkering around under the bonnet I made everything work as it should. And now you see it 🙂

So we’re going into the New Year with a brand new theme. Now it’s done I love it even more than before – it’s so full of life that I think it makes ‘Beach House’, shown above, look a bit, well, conservative and old-fashioned 😕 Do you agree? Let me know what you think 😉

To complement the Photo Galleries, I’ve now managed to add a Videos page as well 🙂

Not as easy as I first thought. I spent ages searching for suitable plugins – and believe me, there are a lot of them to choose from. But many of them assume that you just want to post YouTube or other similar third-party vids which isn’t much use if you want to show your own ones that are stored on your web site.

And also, very annoyingly, there are loads out there where the people who created them have then utterly failed in explaining how to use them 😯 Blimey – what a waste of time and effort, both for them (sadly) and me!

Anyway, I think I’ve got what I want although I’ve not managed even now to find a plugin that does it exactly. I still have to do a bit of extra coding on the Videos page myself to get the layout I want. But I’m pleased with it, I have to say 😉

As well as adding the new Galleries page, I thought I might as well tidy up the other bits and pieces that needed doing.

I’ve now got Links showing up properly in the Side Bar. The designer of the Our Trike theme (Beach House Theme by Dan Masters) has done a wonderful job and various people have commented on the excellent appearance of the blog. But somehow he’d managed to lose the ‘Links’ heading, which is why up to now I’ve only bothered putting in the one link to the BMAA. It looked a bit silly there, sort of unannounced and all by itself.

Well now I’ve been through the code and fixed the problem. Not hard to do, really, but if you’re using Internet Explorer 7 there is a bit of a gap under the ‘Links’ heading (all other browsers work properly – good ole Microsoft….. again 😕 ). So with that little job done, I’ve also added a couple more super links which I think are a really good read. Take a look at them if you have the time 😉

With that, Our Trike’s ready to go forward into 2009. So get ready for lots more news, pics and chat this year. Maybe even a few videos who knows.

I think it’s gonna be a good one 🙂

Just got a Gallery feature installed and working. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while because although you can include individual pics in postings, it’s nice to be able to put related ones all together in a gallery where they can be viewed properly.

But nothing ain’t that simple with this here blogging 🙂

All of these little gizmos are done with what are called plugins. First you have to decide what kind of plugin you are looking for and then you have to go through the list of available ones and decide which one looks as though it’ll do what you want. Then you have to install and configure it which isn’t necessarily that simple or straightforward.

I chose a gallery plugin called Lazy-K-Gallery which seems to do just what I want. You can link to a gallery in a post while at the same time having all of your galleries on view in your ‘Galleries’ page. Anyway, let’s see how we go. I’m still experimenting with other gallery plugins and although I’ve found some very nice ones, several do not show the large version of the images in the gallery correctly in Internet Explorer 7. What is it about MS stuff nowadays – all the other browsers I’ve tried including Firefox, Opera and Chrome work perfectly 😕 I look forward to receiving any comments if people have the time and inclination to post any 😉

So here we are on the last day of 2008. I’m writing this suffering all the discomforts of a flu-like infection but it seems from talking to friends, I’m not alone. Everyone seems to have either recently gone down with something similar, or have someone close who has. So I mustn’t be too self-pitying!

But that’s not the only reason why I feel a bit depressed. After the initial euphoria of my decision to acquire MYRO, sadly I forced myself to have a rethink. I decided that as much as I dearly wanted to have MYRO, I could not allow my heart to rule my head. At this time of credit crunch and with a small business to run that everything depends on, I did not think it wise to go ahead with the purchase just now. And especially bearing in mind that I still don’t yet have my microlight licence and a reasonable amount of expenditure will be needed for that.

So there we are. A sad way to leave 2008 but who knows what 2009 will have in store. Maybe it will still be possible in the Spring. I hope and like to think so, anyway.

On that note may I wish everyone a Happy New Year and express the hope that it will be a safe and peaceful one for you and yours.

So here we are, heading towards the fag end of the year and we’re back into that constant dreary weather again when, if it’s stopped raining, it must be just about to start again. The last week or so has been very dull and soggy with very few bright spots – not microlight weather at all.

And while we’ve had downpour after downpour, poor old MYRO, the AX3 that I started on, has been left out in the open. Not totally out in the open mind – its wings have been under cover hanging on the wall of a hangar but its fuselage and tailplane have been standing outside with a tarpaulin over, on a small trailer. Its engine and a few other bits and pieces have been moved over to MZEL, the new aircraft, and it’s now out of check, of course, but just as was MZEL before, MYRO would soon be flyable again with those parts replaced.

I spoke to Rosie a few weeks ago about the possibility of buying MYRO off her but at that time we left things hanging. But I know we’ve both been thinking that MYRO mustn’t be left out in this kind of weather for too much longer, even with a tarp over, as the tail section is still uncovered and water will start to get in and have its effects in vital areas.

Well, we spoke a bit earlier today and MYRO came up in the conversation. And I’ve now definitely decided to buy it. It’s very exciting and it takes me back 30 years to when I decided to buy G-ARIK, the Tri-Pacer I used to own.

The circumstances are amazingly similar. Now as then I’m stll in the middle of getting my Licence and now as then the aircraft is out of check and was left out in the weather. Getting the Tri-Pacer airworthy was a much bigger job, though, as it had been left out in the open during the winter of 1976/77 which is still one of the worst in living memory with enormous amounts of snow and ice and very low temperatures. And it had to get through the much more stringent Certificate of Airworthiness as compared to the microlight’s Permit to Fly.

I’m very excited. MYRO needs to be moved under cover ASAP really. I hope it will fit into my garage so I’ve got to get that clear of all the junk that’s filling it up at the moment and then it can be brought home. It leaves me with a double problem, of course. I’ve still got to finish off Our Trike that’s in the workshop at Ken’s as well as do what’s needed on MYRO. But so what! Sometimes you just have to decide to do what you know you must 😉

You just can’t help making words out of 4-letter UK registrations that automatically become the names of the aircraft. The old AX3 was and always will be referred to as MYRO by anyone who knew and flew in it. Now that’s all very well when the name is friendly, somehow, like MYRO – sounds as though he’ll always be looking out for you up there (strange, but MYRO sounds masculine to me whereas we usually think of aircraft as feminine, like boats). But what if the name er….. isn’t?

Allow me to introduce you to Measle ….. sorry, G-MZEL, the new AX3. Come on now, stop sniggering. She can’t help her name after all. Sure, we’ll get to love it in time, but it is a bit strange, isn’t it. Anyway, she’s a good little looker (especially for her age, but don’t let her hear you say that), as you can see from the following pics (click on them to see larger versions).

I managed to sneak away yesterday afternoon and got in an hour in MZEL. I was very happy at the end of it because I think I put in my best series of take-offs and landings that I’ve done in the microlight so far. I was always very proud of my landings but 20 odd years is a long time and like it or not you do get rusty. Plus age does take its toll and I have to grudgingly admit that my foot-hand coordination isn’t what it used to be. Sad but true.

But yesterday was a time for a small personal celebration, not for thinking about what used to be. There’s always room for improvement but yesterday I felt that I really could see some progress.

And let me tell you something else, especially all you flyers out there who think that microlights are not real aircraft. Having now flown both microlights and Group A light singles, I have to say that the former are much more tricky, at all times and especially in the landing phase. You can’t just set it up, trim and sit back – you have to fly it with constant control inputs the whole way to the ground. Greasers are far easier IMO in a Group A. And the same applies in level flight. The microlight is constantly at the mercy of the wind and weather. Even in fairly docile conditions like yesterday, due to the lightness of the microlight, it’s easy to find enough lift on downwind to gain 200 feet or more when ideally you want to fly level and you’re thinking about descending! It’s fun flying to be sure 🙂

Got 1hr 20mins in last Sunday I’m glad to say, in the new AX3, which is a very tidy little machine. Whereas MYRO has a couple of thousand hours on it, the new one only has a few hundred and it shows. I’ll do a couple of pics when I get the chance.

The trouble with having such a large gap between flights (I last flew on July 26th) is that you have to spend so much time on revision. And you get rusty, even in just 2 or 3 months. While practising slow flying, we just began to enter the stall and my reactions were far from instinctive. Not good at all.

I’m typing this on Friday morning. Looking out of my window the sky’s blue and clear and there’s little or no wind. I’ll ring Rosie soon to see how things stand for flying this weekend. Alternatively, if I get all my jobs done and it’s quiet this afternoon, might even sneak off for a flight later.

I’ll let you know how I get on 😉

In every sense. We’ve just enjoyed over a week of what must have been the best spell of good weather for the whole of the year so far. Steady high pressure over most of Great Britain has meant clear days, light winds but clear chilly nights. Last night was very cold for the time of year where we are.

But only one problem – when the replacement AX3 had been finished and been given its ‘Ticket’ (Permit to Fly), because the weather was still so poor, Rosie decided to nip off for a holiday. So that has meant no flying for me! I had to watch as the occasional Shadow, Thruster and weight-shift have buzzed by overhead. She’s back tomorrow but true to form, looking out of the window while I type this, it looks as though the calm weather is beginning to break up. 😕

The other worrying thing is this ruddy financial crisis we’re currently all going through. For me, July and August were also quiet months in my business, but then again they usually are, as folks go off for their Summer holidays. There’s been the usual pick-up in September but the jury’s out, and will be until October or even later really, on whether business will get back to anything like normallity. Until then, although I’ll keep my flying with Rosie going, I’ll not risk over-committing myself too much financially especially with the general cost of living (gas, electricity, food 😯 ) being so much on the up.

A somewhat depressing end to a rather below-par Summer really… 🙁

Phoned Rosie yesterday and there’s a good chance that the new AX3 will be serviceable later this week. So we pencilled in Thursday or Friday as possibilities for my next session. So I just looked at the 5-Day Forecast for Canterbury (the nearest large town – city actually) and this is what I found.

Can you believe it. Here come the high winds all over again. Take a look at Thursday – sunny intervals, visibility very good but wind at 9 mph gusting 31 from the south-west!

And if that’s not bad enough what about Friday – occasional light rain but wind from the south at 25 mph gusting 46!!

It’s almost unbelievable that we’ve had such consistently bad weather for so long – and apparently there really is no end to the spell in sight. I guess in a few days we can expect to be hit by the remnants of Hurricane Gustav and goodness knows what that’ll have in store for us 😕

At this rate there’s a danger that flying will become an endangered sport in the UK….

So here we are, the last day of August. Yesterday the weather here in the South of England was a scorcher – around 80 degrees Fahrenheit – but today is totally different. Sky is low, dull and completely overcast and we keep getting sprinklings of drizzle. Not much wind though, which is something I suppose. That dropped, at last, several days ago, not that there have been that many good ‘flying’ days since I was last airborne. But flying, in the AX3 at least wasn’t an option anyway.

The reason is that Rosie has had another, better, AX3 stored in her garage for some time. The time for G-MYRO’s annual check came round at the end of August so she decided rather than renew MYRO’s permit, she would swap the engine (and a few other bits and pieces) over from MYRO to the other AX3 and get that flying instead. She thought it would take a couple of weeks or so and that as the weather was not too good anway, to start the work at around mid-August.

Well, we all know what happens with the best-laid plans. The change-overs all went ahead as planned and the time came for the new AX3 to be inspected, weighed and permitted. Without going into detail, a complication has arisen to do with weight-and-balance and the calculated position of the aircraft’s Centre of Gravity. It looks as though one of the ‘standard moments’ used in the calculations is incorrect and until that has been resolved, the aircraft can’t be permitted.

Now we have to wait for the (slow) wheels of bureaucracy to turn and until they do, we just have to keep waiting. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back flying this month – and as my last flight was on July 26th, it can’t come soon enough.

Just realised, after all the somewhat lengthy trials and tribulations involving The Gauge on Our Trike, I forgot to mention that I got the one that Dave kindly sold me working. It was quite a relief let me tell you! Since then, I’ve unfortunately been unable to get any more done. With time passing, I have to get the carburettor tuning sorted out. I found while running the engine to test The Gauge that even when warm, if you close the choke much beyond half-way, the engine stops. In a microlight, that’s not good 😕 If that’s not sorted out it’ll never get its Permit even if everything else is sound. So that is now my next priority and hopefully I’ll see what I can do about it next weekend.

Both Manston and Lydd are looking at 45 knot gusts today – that’s something like 54 mph! The Silver Birches and other trees outside my window are being bent over and hurled around by the wind and the ground beneath them is littered with twigs and small branches that have healthy green leaves on them. We are becoming desperate for some high pressure to get these winds to drop but the forecast for the rest of the week is just as dismal. And the long range forecast for August is predicting more of the same.

I can’t in all my years remember a year like this. We thought last year was bad enough but this is even worse 😯

On the upside (there is one?)….Dave’s gauge arrived this morning. At least I can look forward to fitting that this weekend 😕

The lows and highs of getting an old microlight flying again…

After the disappointment of  the weekend with The Gauge (see how it has now assumed an identity all of its own 😕 ) I asked over on the BMAA forum whether anyone happened to have a spare one lying around. And Dave did have! So we’ve done the deal, the cheque’s in the post and soon it’ll be winging its way down courtesy of the Royal Mail.

What a bit of luck! Checked with the UK supplier and the news was that this is an old gauge which isn’t very popular any more (people want separate gauges nowadays). Apparently there is a model reference for it but the actual gauge isn’t even in their catalogue now. It could still be ordered though, but would probably have to be specially manufactured in the USA and the lead time would therefore be something like 7 to 8 weeks 😯

But not as much luck with the weather though. The storms and high winds still keep roaring through almost without respite. This is more like Autumn weather – and bad Autumn weather at that. Last night we had a massive downpour in the early hours and although it’s now bright with a fair bit of white cumulus scudding across a blue sky, the winds are blowing a gale (well seems like a gale… 🙄 ).

The strip I’m flying out of is mid-way between Lydd and Manston in East Kent at an elevation of 410 feet, so it’s fairly susceptible to winds anyway and is also close enough to the English Channel to feel the effect of Sea Breezes. Its weather is more like Manston than Lydd and here’s today’s TAF for Manston.

EGMH 120903Z 121018 23022G37KT 9999 SCT018 PROB40 TEMPO 1418 4000 SHRA TSRA BKN014CB

TAF stands for Terminal Airport Forecast and it’s intended to inform pilots flying into or out of an airport what weather conditions they should expect. Here’s what it tells us.

The TAF was issued on 12th August at 9.03am local time. It’s valid between the hours of 10.00am and 6.00pm and the forecast is as follows. Wind from the south-west (230 deg) at 22 knots gusting 37 knots. Unlimited visability with scattered cloud at 1800 ft. For a while (TEMPO) between 2.00pm and 6.00pm (the end of the TAF, so it may go on longer) there’s a 40% probability to expect visibility to drop to 4000 metres in rain showers and heavier rain associated with thunder storms and broken storm cloud at 1400 ft. What a great weather forecast for August in the UK! Unflyable in an AX3 that’s for sure 😐

Sighhhhhhh……. 😥

Sadly, the saga of The Gauge drew to its inevitable conclusion this afternoon. One way or another it had to.

Connected up the new thermocouple sender unit but after starting the engine and letting it warm up for several minutes, there was absolutely no sign of a temperature reading on the gauge. Disappointing but not wholly unexpected, I suppose.

I’ll never know whether the gauge was fully functional or not when I got hold of it and it’s possible I was on a hiding to nothing right from the beginning. But in all honesty, close reading of the manufacturer’s web site did reveal that connecting the gauge incorrectly would probably lead to irreversible damage, which is probably what happened. Thermocouples only generate very small currents so it seems likely that if, during my ‘experimentations’, I inadvertently connected the RPM wires to the CHT gauge, the relatively much higher currents involved could have blown the internal circuitry.

So that’s it then. We’ll have to get hold of another one – I guess probably a new one this time. Another time consuming setback. Very frustrating indeed. 🙁

Well, half of one really. It was important to do something about the problem gauge which has now wasted an awful lot of time and quite considerably delayed our getting Our Trike back into check. Just so people know what I’m talking about, this is what the gauge looks like.

Cylinder Head Temperature is shown on the left hand scale and Engine RPM on the right. The gauge is a used replacement as the original had been damaged, and as the connections had also been messed up, I’d not been able to get it working after replacing the wiring as I didn’t know which wire was supposed to be connected where.

I had the idea a few weeks ago of asking for advice on the BMAA Forum and within a very short time was pointed towards the manufacturer’s web site where there is a diagram showing the connections for a similar model. This is what the connections on the back of the gauge look like.

The gauge is in effect two gauges combined. The RPM connections I was advised, consist of a link to the magneto (which creates the engine spark) on one side and an earth on the other. The CHT connections go straight to a thermocouple (remember from school, two dissimilar metals that are in contact that create a small current when the junction is heated up). The thermocouple is held against the cylinder head by being screwed down under one of the spark plugs – pretty simple really but quite effective. It was easy to trace the thermocouple connections and according to the gauge manufacturer’s diagram, they should then be connected to the pair of connections on the back of the gauge numbered 3 and 4. Simple.

That just left connections 2 and 5 for the RPM gauge, with the ‘live’ on 2 and the earth on 5, according to the diagram. Marvellous! 🙂

Dave on the BMAA forum had suggested that I checked things out with an electrical multimeter which was a good idea that hadn’t occurred to me even though I have an excellent Robin at home. So that’s what I did. Disaster!. It seemed to me that with the connections as they were, they were all ‘shorting’ out! The only way I could prevent it was by breaking the RPM ‘live’ connection, so back I went to the BMAA forum.

‘Yes’, said Dave, ‘It would appear that way but actually they’re not’. I had asked if anyone knew where I could get an ‘official’ wiring diagram for the Robin engine that showed exactly how the connections should be done and almost straight away, Ginge posted the following one.

I’d said that the original connection had been made into a yellow wire which was in a group emerging from the magneto housing, and if you look carefully at the area ringed in red, you’ll see that that’s exactly how it should be. Dang! I’d broken that connection so now I’d have to remake it. 😐

And that’s what I did this afternoon. And guess what – afterwards we had an Engine RPM readout!

But still no CHT reading. And then I remembered. When I bought the gauge, the seller also gave me a Rotax Water Temperature gauge (which Our Trike doesn’t need because it’s air cooled) and a rolled up length of what I’d thought was old wire. When I got it out and unrolled it, sure enough it was a thermocouple. So the question is, is our existing thermocouple not compatible with this gauge and will this ‘new’ one work? I don’t know – I didn’t have a plug spanner with me so I couldn’t swap them over. That will be a job for next weekend.

But at least with Engine RPM I’m half way there. So it’s half a Hooray! anyway 😉

What a relief. For reasons I won’t bother going into, I had to transfer the Our Trike web site over to a new web hosting company. I was really worried because quite a lot of work had gone into setting it up and I didn’t know if it could be transferred and keep all its posts, pictures and comments. 😕

It turned out that although a bit of effort was involved, my fears were groundless. WordPress had already thought about it and provided an export/import system that handled all of the main problems for me. Cleverly, their system wouldn’t let me import my exported file without upgrading to the latest version, which was fairly effortless and painless. Only problem was, for those who know WordPress, the Dashboard had a new layout and a whole bunch of unwanted default pages that I’d originally edited or deleted in the old installation, were reintroduced and I had to poke around all over the place trying to find out how to delete them all over again. 🙄

But I’m glad to say, I did the job in an evening and as far as the outside world is concerned, nothing appears to have changed. What a relief. 😯

I’ve moved over to UKGold Domains and Web Hosting, a new company here in the UK which is just being launched by someone I know. 😉 If you’re interested you can find them at http://ukgold.com. They offer a great range of highly competitive web hosting packages and I think Our Trike is now set up for the future. 🙂

Day after day – winds something like 12 gusting 25 mph and as if that’s not bad enough, typically something like 60 degrees of directional variability also. In layman’s terms that means that the wind is not only constantly doubling in speed and then abruptly falling back again but it’s also wildly swinging around in direction, from side to side. And this is July – mid-Summer here in the UK for goodness sake, and there seems to be no end to it in sight!

It’s becoming so frustrating. OK, you can fly  an AX3 in these conditions, although it’s not much fun because you’re constantly being buffeted around and you’re needing to work all the time to maintain steady flight. But training in such conditions is pretty hopeless, as I’ve been finding. To learn effectively you need to be able to repeat the same procedure time after time in conditions that are reasonably constant, and that just hasn’t been possible for several weeks now.

To cap it all today, Rosie and I decided that as the day was also forecast to be hot and sunny with almost clear skies that would inevitably lead to severe up-draughts (what is known as thermic activity), we would wait until 6.00pm until things would have calmed down before giving it a go. I have to drive 50 miles each way to the strip which is quite a commitment, really. You’ve guessed it – after getting there today and waiting a while to assess the conditions, we decided that the wind was still up to its tricks and that it would be a waste of time going for a training flight. So we put the AX3 back in the hangar and I left for home again.

Oh well, we’ll try again tomorrow, but in the meantime I thought I’d share a few ‘pilot’s-eye-view’ pictures to give people an idea of what it’s like to fly a microlight in this part of the world. They were taken late in the afternoon on a day last week which was a bit overcast and I had hoped to have some brighter ones by now. But as you can now see, it hasn’t been possible. The screen had received its fair share of squidged insects and stuff and you’ll also notice the occasional raindrop on it as one or two heavier bits of clag passed over. As before, the pics link to the very large originals for anyone with a fast connection who wants to see the full detail.

I handed over to Rosie just after I’d done a touch-and-go and the first pic was taken at only 150ft or so.

The procedure is – full throttle, as you accelerate, pull back to take the weight off the nose wheel, pull off at 40-45mph, ease the stick forward to get 50mph and hold that up to 200ft, then nose up to get 45mph which you hold for the rest of the climb. Remember the mnemonic – PAT, power-attitude-trim, and even in this little aircraft trimming helps a lot. And don’t forget to keep monitoring your Ts and Ps (engine temperatures and fuel pump pressure) – yes, almost as much work as in a GA aircraft. But much more flying because the considerably lower inertia of a microlight means that you’re hands-on flying it the whole time. Really good fun, leastways I think so 🙂

The next two pics are taken out of the pilot’s side as we continued the climb out.

Check out Google Earth. The next pic is taken across the cockpit in the direction of Sandwich. That’s the throttle lever that Rosie’s fingers are on and the coastline and English Channel in the distance.

The next two pics are looking west from the pilot’s side as we climbed through something like 800ft or so. They show how marvellous the countryside is around here and what the attraction of flying low and slow in a microlight is all about.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at this next one. Just glorious!

And one last one for now, looking from the pilot’s side towards Dover – not that you can see it here!

Well, that’s it for now. I hope I’ve been able to give some sort of idea of what the attractions are of this amazing sport, hobby, pastime – call it what you will. All I know is that I just love it 😉

Today was probably the best flying day we’ve had all year. Blue sky, warm sunshine and hardly any wind. Unbelievable considering how windy it’s been for weeks now (no exaggeration).

Only trouble is, Rosie doesn’t fly Sundays. Shucks!

So I decided to nip down to the Our Trike workshop to check out the replacement CHT/RPM gauge. Grabbed the new jerry can I recently got on Ebay as I knew there wasn’t much fuel left in the tank and picked up 10 litres of unleaded and a litre of 2-stroke oil on the way (it needs a 40-1 petrol/oil mixture).

Pulled Our Trike out into the open, reattached the battery lead, checked everything over, topped up the tank and keyed the ignition. Shucks! It just would not start.

So I removed the plugs, which of course were totally oiled up, and cleaned them – 3 times eventually. I also checked the fuel filter and removed the fuel lines and carburettor plugs to make sure fuel was getting through. It was. Still would not start. What the heck could be the reason?

Aha, I thought. There’s an ignition master switch which I’d switched to ‘on’ – what if that’s making a poor connection? So I switched it off and on 3 or 4 times and then keyed the ignition again. Yippee! It started. Memo – think about replacing that dang switch!

Right – check the gauge……… oh no!! It’s not working!

I tried switching the connections as for a while the CH temperature needle seemed to be responding as the RPM needle should have been when I revved the engine. But no luck – couldn’t get it working. So now I’ve got to check the wiring and try to find out why not. I found what looked like some old wiring diagrams previously but it won’t be at all easy on a 20 year old microlight.

Shucks and shucks again! Not a particularly successful day 🙁

I’ve been trying to get onto this post for a while, especially as I dropped a few hints about it in an earlier one, but as usual time, the old enemy, got in the way. But now the decks have cleared a bit I can take the opportunity to post the latest news.

For several weeks, much of my time was taken up with things to do with the Xair so now with that out of my hair, I decided that the time had come to take the bull by the horns and start seeing about doing some proper flying. After thinking long and hard, I decided that although this whole thing began with the purchase of Our Trike, I now had to agree with something Ken had said. The idea of flying in a totally open cockpit is still fun but there’s much to be said for having a closed cabin. There are obvious things, like having side-by-side seating, which makes the whole experience much more enjoyable if you have a passenger. And as I’ve said before, enjoyment is the main point of this whole exercise. And being able to fly at virtually any time of year without needing to wrap up and wear crash helmets and stuff like that is also another big consideration. But really the deciding factor for me has been the weather.

This year has not been shaping up too well at all in the UK for flying small aircraft. It’s not just that we’ve had a lot of rain, we have, but even when the weather has been clear and bright, we’ve still had quite a bit of wind. Now, wind is a big No-No for Our Trike. More recent flex-wing (or weight-shift) designs, which is what Our Trike is, can handle certain amounts of wind, but Our Trike is an older design and really needs almost calm conditions to be safe. But no flex-wing can be flown safely in anything like the windy conditions that a fixed wing (or 3-axis) design can cope with. So the decision really is a no-brainer. Have to go fixed wing.

The other consideration, of course, is that all of my previous Group A and gliding experience has been in fixed wings so the learning curve is likely to be less steep in a 3-axis model too. So that’s why I got in touch with Rosie.

Rosie is a microlight Instructor here in South-East England. She has two aircraft, an Ikarus C42 and an AX3 and you can choose which one you prefer to learn in. The C42 is modern, high-tech and for me, I’m afraid, a bit flashy. On the other hand, the AX3 is old (mid-nineties I think), a little bit tatty and frayed around the edges with a few thousand hours on the clock. Having so much in common with it, obviously I had to go for the AX3! And here it is.

By the way, if you click on any of the images in this posting you will be able to view full-screen versions. You’ll also have the option of viewing the original digital pics which are all much larger than a browser window. But beware – they are all over 1 MB (one of them is 1.7MB) so they may take a while to open if you have a slow connection. But it’s worth it, I think, because some of them have a lot of detail in them, especially the cockpit pics that come later. You can save them into a folder on your own machine to view off-line and if you zoom in you can see an incredible amount of detail. Aren’t they marvellous, these digital cameras 🙂

But before we go any further, let me tell you a little bit more about Rosie. She’s a charming lady of, let’s say, about the same age as us. Flying with Rosie is a most enjoyable experience. She’s amusing and excellent company but like all good Instructors, she keeps control of things, but with a light touch. She knows what she wants you to do and how she wants you to do it but she communicates this in a way that makes the learning process a whole lot of fun.

And so it was that I turned up for my first flight with Rosie on the 10th of June. Actually it wasn’t quite as straightforward as that. Rosie flies from a small farm strip not far from Canterbury and despite her having given me directions how to get there, I’d spent about 45 minutes driving around the beautiful country lanes of Kent lost, looking for it! I’d taken the time away from my business (dang it, why not – it’s my business!!) and bv the time we’d had our briefing it was getting on for 2pm by the time we took off.

It was a beautiful afternoon – bright, sunny, a bit of cloud but a little bit windy. Rosie handed the controls over to me quite soon after take off and I thoroughly enjoyed getting the feel of them. We headed for an area in the direction of Dover and could clearly see the Cross Channel Ferries entering and leaving the harbour. This was the kind of flying that I had been looking forward to.

We ran through the Microlight Syllabus. Straight and level and turns to the right and the left. Climbing and descending, straight ahead and in the turn. Stalling, slow flying, I didn’t realise until afterwards just how much of the basic syllabus we covered. Rosie was very complimentary. She said my flying was ‘delightful’ which I thought was not only a charming compliment for which I was most grateful, but which also made me feel just as I had as a young student pilot over thirty years ago when my old Instructor had complimented me when I’d done something well. Strange, isn’t it, how some things just don’t change with time. The wide grin was plastered all over my face like glue 🙂

Rosie directed me to a little landing strip in a nearby field – just a mowed strip on a not-that-level field next to a road where we could do some touch and goes. Boy, if I’d had any thoughts of being a bit cocky about my flying skills up to then, now was the time to forget them.

The approach was over the road and just as you thought you’d managed to get everything nicely set up, you were hit by the same bit of lift every time, rising off the tarmac. There were trees to our right and as the wind was a bit from right-to-left and not straight down the strip, there was a bit of roll-over off them. And then to cap it all, we were flying into the low point of the field with the strip rising gently up ahead of us and there was a ditch with a few bushes just before the threshold causing the weirdest little bit of turbulence I’ve ever come across. All in all, quite challenging! But fun was not the word.

It soon became clear that there is some way to go before I get back the somewhat delicate skills that you need to do consistent good, safe landings. And in any case, there’s a learning curve because the whole approach and landing sequence is so different between a typical Group A light aircraft and a 3-axis microlight. Because the inertia of the microlight is so much lower and the forward resistance relatively so much higher, the approach is considerably steeper, so even without flaps (the AX3 and most microlights don’t have any) you feel as though you are doing a Group A full-flap approach. Then, you leave the flare later and much lower (ahem… bum height as a certain lady Instructor who will remain nameless suggested) and hold off aiming to land on the main wheels with the nose up to keep the weight off the nose wheel. I found that I was keeping too much trailing throttle on as I tended to do in the past to get a ‘greaser’ of a landing but this meant two things tended to happen. First, by the time I’d touched down, I’d used up too much of the runway and secondly, the long flare gave the wind the chance to blow the aircraft around. And so it did! Things to remember and lessons to learn straight away.

But all good things come to an end and eventually we headed off back to the home strip. That first session came to 1hr 30mins – and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world 🙂

I next flew on 24th June. Boy, if I’d thought the last session was challenging, it was nothing compared to this. The wind was gusty and also pretty variable meaning that setting up to land was not at all easy. We returned to the same field as before for some more touch and goes. The whole session lasted for 1hr 25mins and I have to say, it was pretty gruelling. I thanked Rosie afterwards for persevering because it must have been pretty tiring for her as well, especially as some of my efforts were not at all pretty. It was excellent practise, not that you expect to be flying and landing in such conditions all the time. But experience suggests that some day it will happen, so what better way to learn how than with an experienced Instructor sitting by your side.

To date, just another 1hr 10mins on 1st July and this time conditions were not ideal, but were a lot better. Hooray! Take offs and landings totally under my own hand at last. A satisfying and essential advance and development. After all, you can’t solo if you can’t take off and land… 😉

To finish this post off, what about a few more AX3 pics for those who are interested. Here’s another external shot taken from the other side.

And now a couple of cockpit shots to give a feel of what it’s like to fly one of these little aircraft. Rosie had removed the little Icom radio when they were taken which explains why there appear to be some loose cables hanging out.

Note that the AX3 has a single central stick. Here are some of the controls and indicators that can be seen if you zoom in a bit – see if you can spot them. Master switch, fuel cock, mags/starter switch, engine choke, fuel pump switch, fuel pressure gauge, carb heater switch, engine hours switch, RPM gauge, airspeed gauge, compass, engine temp/pressure gauges plus, of course airspeed, altimeter and vertical speed gauges. Even in this type of aircraft, pretty much a ‘standard fit’ of instruments, but no DI note. And more and more owners are fitting GPSs as well, these days.

One last one to finish off.

Not the fastest, most modern(!) or the most comfortable 3-axis microlight around but what the AX3 does have in abundance is character. That and flyability, and I look forward very much to progressing my microlighting experience in it.

WOW! 2 postings in 2 days. Something of a record for Our Trike!!

The past weekend was glorious here in South-East England – first Biggin Hill Airshow for many a year that hasn’t been ruined by low cloud and rain. Anyway,  I felt that I was owed a  bit  of ‘me-time’, so after completing the inevitable chores that always seem to come first, I got myself back to the Our Trike Workshop for a few hours.

First job was to fit the replacement RPM/CHT gauge. All went pretty well – very neat job actually even though I say it myself 😉 – but just one problem.

I had made a note of the  order of connections on the old gauge so I would know how to connect up the replacement. But – and it’s a long story involving Toddie, my Springer who goes bonkers wth the sound of rain on our conservatory roof, the paper pad with the notes on and a paper ripping spree brought on by a heavy overnight rainstorm – these had been lost. So I had to make the connections as best as I could remember and when the engine is run again, we’ll have to see what happens. Hopefully, even if they are wrong no damage will be done and it’ll just be a matter of switching things around. But we’ll see.

I also decided  to refit the wheel spats. Blimey what a job. I hadn’t managed to find any suitable aluminium to make replacement brackets from (all the lovely little hardware shops that used to sell such things 20 or 30 years ago are long gone, put out of business by the global multiples who have no interest whatsoever in supplying such items) so I had just tidied up the existing ones and refitted them. Getting the holes to line up was a nightmare made even worse by the incredibly limited access to the inside-rear of the spats themselves.

However, I persevered and eventually got all 3 bolts on both sides in – but on weird-looking angles. Couldn’t tighten them up because although I’d dashed around picking up all the tools I thought I’d need before leaving home, I’d managed to leave both of my socket sets behind.

Hopefully when the bolts are tightened, they’ll pull into place but  care will be needed as the spats are only fibreglass and it’ll be easy to split them.

But that’s for next time…