The weather the last two days has been glorious and I’m pleased to say that I managed to make the most of it. Yesterday I thought I’d nip out to Ken’s at last, to fit the new Master Switch on Our Trike. I made the connections up but when I went to fit the switch in the panel I realised that the hole was far too big. I then realised that the washers that were needed were still on the old switch, which I’d left at home in my conservatory. So I’d made a wasted trip! I’d been hoping to fit the switch, then get Our Trike out of the workshop and take some pics for Ebay. I suppose I could have taken the pics but I decided to switch to Plan B instead 😉

I had some household chores to do first but I thought that rather than leave it to the next morning, this would be a good time to return the trailer, leaving the whole of Sunday free. So that’s what I did. I’d agreed with Rosie to leave it at the strip so if she needed it, it would be handy for her. It also means that if by some miracle I do get MYRO ready to go within weeks rather than months, it will still also be handy for me.

The next time I was at the strip, I’d hoped to be able to take some close-up pics of MZEL’s engine mountings to help me when I come to fit MYRO’s engine. Unfortunately, by the time I’d arrived it was too late, so I parked the trailer and drove off. I’d got about half a mile before I remembered that I’d wanted to pick up MYRO’s wing struts that Rosie said she had left near the wings, so I turned round and went back for them. I carefully tied them onto the roof-rack as I didn’t want them to vibrate and rub together on the journey home. Luckily everything went as planned and I got home while there was still just enough light to get them off and safely laid on my back lawn.

I was up bright and early this morning but first of all before I could start on MYRO, Toddie made sure that I first took him for a long walk over the local field. Then I could do what I wanted to do. For reasons I won’t bother going into, Rosie had removed MYRO’s fuel tank, so I decided that the first thing I’d do was re-fit it. This seemed a good idea as it fits behind the right-hand seat and all of the work I intend doing is forward of that. With the tank in place, everything behind the seats can be left more or less undisturbed.

I’d never bothered looking closely before, but the tank holds 25 litres and is held in place by a webbing harness that is attached to the right-hand seat frame and cover. Fitting the tank looks deceptively simple – just drop the bottom of the tank into the harness, pull the top straps over so the tank is upright and tighten the harness.

Well, yes, in theory. I ended up taking all the pipes off that were attached to the tank, including the main fuel supply that enters the tank through a hole in the top and has a filter attached to it that lies in the tank bottom. The whole arrangement had to be removed 😯

I ended up struggling for a good two hours but finally the tank was in place where it should be. Here are a couple of pics that I took at the end of the job.

It was tricky because of the lack of space to work in and, I have to say, pretty tiring too, but I was very pleased how neat it looked at the end 🙂

Rosie had also switched MYRO’s stick with MZEL’s because it had a PTT (push-to-talk) switch in for her radio. I was happy about that because it means that I can eventually fit what suits me without having to worry about fixing a hole that was left by what was there before, but it meant that I had to re-fit the stick that Rosie had left lying on the cabin floor.

The diagram in the AX3 manual looks scary, but when you look at the fixing itself, there’s actually nothing to it. That’s the reason why, incidentally, I want to take some detail shots of MZEL’s engine mountings. Ten minutes or less and the job was done, as you can see.

So I’ve made a start on MYRO – just! Every little helps, as they say, and tinkering with little jobs like the ones I’ve done helps the general learning process. I don’t think it’s a good idea to just blast ahead – you need to learn about the aircraft and how it must be treated. After all, when you’re zipping along at 50 or 60 mph at 2000 feet, there’s quite a lot at stake 😉

I was tempted to call this post The Longest Day in keeping with the D-Day commemorations because it has certainly felt like it today. I have to confess that having heard thunder rolling in the distance at around 5.30am I decided I might as well have a lie in and eventually got out of bed at 9.00am. But from then on I was working all day, humping stuff around, to get MYRO into my garage. My son and a young neighbour helped me get MYRO off the trailer and here’s a pic of it on the ground and uncovered for the first time since last August.

I started by moving all the stuff in the garage that I’ve had to keep and that was in the way onto my patio. Then I had to give the floor a good old sweep and find places to stow the loose bits, like the tail fin and the fuel tank. Parts like the tail fin and later, the horizontal stabiliser that I also had to remove to get MYRO in, have to be treated very carefully indeed because if the fabric covering is damaged in any way it would be a very expensive to rectify the problem, possibly requiring the purchase of a new replacement cover. I decided to look for ways of suspending the fin and stabiliser from the wall and this I managed to do very successfully using bungie straps and rubber padding to keep them away from the wall.

To keep the story short, after getting MYRO in I then had to move all the stuff I’d taken out, back again. I’d done a mental calculation that there would be enough room behind MYRO to accommodate it and I’m glad to say I was right. I can still get to everything I need to and I can pull MYRO out to work on with no difficulty. Here’s a pic of MYRO tucked up snuggly inside my garage.

Today was a long day and a very tiring one. There was only one slightly dodgy period when it looked as though it might rain and although a few drops fell, it passed over very quickly. So that was a relief for which I was grateful. Getting MYRO safely under cover has made the efforts involved in clearing my garage over the last four weeks or so wholly worthwhile and as everyone knows, decluttering your life is good for your soul anyway. 🙂

Now I can have a short breather before deciding how I’m going to tackle the main job in hand – getting MYRO back into the air. 😉

And when I picked up MYRO yesterday evening I said to Rosie that I hadn’t been that excited since Christmas 1953 🙂

I had to borrow my elder step-son’s car to bring MYRO home because mine doesn’t have a tow bar and his does. And the logistics suited making the trip down to the Kent coast where Rosie lives yesterday, so that’s what I had to do. My son’s sat-nav worked a treat taking me straight to the road where Rosie lives. It was a chilly dull evening and by the time I reached Rosie’s it was drizzling. Had a quick cuppa, sorted out the registration transfer and hitched the trailer up.

The drive back was 60 odd miles at no more than 45 mph in drizzly light rain the whole way so it wasn’t that enjoyable. I stopped a couple of times to check that everything was OK up the back and I’m glad to say that the journey was totally problem free. By the time I got home it was dark and with a bit of help I parked the trailer with MYRO still on it next to my house where it would be safe.

I knew I would be up pretty early this morning but I had to be anyway as where I’d left MYRO it was a blocking a couple of my neighbours’ garages. The weather this morning was pretty much a continuation of last night’s – breezy, rather cold and with drizzly rain. So much for our glorious mid-Summer. I took a couple of pictures of where MYRO spent its first night before moving the trailer round to the front of my garage. This will only be temporary though, until I can get MYRO off the trailer and into my garage.

Here are the first few pics of MYRO in its new home.

I am so pleased that things are moving along at last and I can’t wait to get cracking with the job of getting MYRO ready to fly. The cabin shot is similar to the one I posted a long time ago, here, and although things look a lot more disorganised and untidy now, everything is more or less all still there. In fact there will be some big improvements because, of course, I have a new panel to replace the existing one that has a big hole in it.

But more of my plans for MYRO later. At the moment I’m just glad that this little eagle has found its way home to the nest at last, after all this time. 😀

Remember how you used to feel when you ran all the way home from school to tell your Mum how well you had just done in your test? Well I feel a bit like that just now.

I went off to bed quite early last night after going through my revision notes for the Nth time, but I don’t think it did me that much good as I woke up even earlier than usual with my mind racing with stuff to do with air law and goodness knows what. So I got up, had breakfast, took the dog for a quick walk, read through my notes for the N+1th time and skipped through a few mock exams on the Internet. Then I left with plenty of time to spare looking forward to a serene drive down to the strip. After only a mile or so I drove slap bang into the traffic heading into the European Open Golf at the London Golf Club and although to start off with my heart sank, because it was still quite early there wasn’t too much of it and I soon got through. Made a mental note, though, to come back on the M2 rather than the M20 because it was bound to be much worse later.

When I arrived at the strip, Rosie was just about to take a lucky young chap on a 25th birthday jaunt in the Icarus so I had to wait for an hour before she returned. In the meantime got chatting with the young man’s girlfriend (lucky young man 😉 ) and another guy called Mike who, it turned out was also there to do an exam. But just the one, though, Air Law. Mike didn’t know it then, but he had a bit of a shock in store. He only came to do Air Law but because I was doing three, Rosie ‘shamed’ him into doing three as well! Now that kind of thing can spoil your whole day, can’t it 😯

Any way, I rattled the three exams off and waited while Rosie got out her templates to mark them. She’s a devil – the first one she moved the template over so it looked as though I’d only got a few answers right. Now that’s just being unkind to an old pilot isn’t it 🙂

So how’d I do? Not so bad – Air Law 85%, Human Performance 90% and Aircraft General 86%. So three not-too-bad passes. That’ll do me 🙂

Just one thing though for any trainee pilots who might be reading this – I found Air Law a bit tricky mainly because I’d relied on an old edition of Cosgrove and hadn’t obtained enough more recent, up-to-date stuff. Consequently many of the questions were totally new to me. Now I’m not saying I guessed – some yes and those I got mainly wrong – but I had to struggle to remember snippets and things I’d read or come across that I hadn’t consciously tried to learn. That’s a risky approach and I think I was lucky to come out of it as well as I did.

Now what else? Well, for starters, Rosie gave me MYRO’s ignition key 🙂 I said that with many people returning home after a week’s holiday, it would probably be very busy on the M2 this weekend, so it would probably be best if I picked up MYRO on an evening this coming week. So that’s how we left it. I mentioned in an earlier post that MYRO’s wings are hanging up on the wall of a hangar, and here they are.

I can’t wait to get them back on and be up in the air in MYRO again 🙂

At last! My cheque has now cleared so MYRO is paid for and the next job is to get it moved up from Rosie’s to my garage. I’ve still got a few things I need to clear even after taking car load after car load down to the local waste disposal site, but I think there’s just about room now. Quite a few things I chucked away were ‘new’ especially stuff I cleared from a shop I used to have several years ago. But that’s the point – it was now out of date and obsolete so there was no use in keep hanging onto it. After all, it’s been in there for something over 10 years. Yes, I have to admit that a lot of the stuff I have got rid of was even older – just shows the extent of the problem doesn’t it, and I bet I’m far from unique 😕

Maybe it’s a generation thing – it’s still an awful wrench seeing perfectly good stuff going into the rubbish but I kept forcing myself to remember why I was doing it. Then it became a whole lot easier 🙂

As I type this we’re enjoying what is probably the best day of the year so far here in South-East England. When I took the dog out earlier the sky was blue and cloudless and it looked as though it was developing into a scorcher. Now I notice that we’ve got broken cumulus and a light breeze but the sun is really hot when it comes out from behind a cloud. But in any case, there’s no flying for me just now. I’ve arranged with Rosie to sit three of the five exams I have to do for my NPPL tomorrow morning, Air Law, Human Performance and Aircraft General. In a post on a forum I belong to I said that having passed them before when I was a lot younger in many ways, the fear of failure is greater than the fear of the exams themselves. If I do badly maybe it would turn on a light bulb in my brain that I am getting older and ‘past it’ and that’s a bit scary 😯

This is the first time since starting on Our Trike that I’ve really had to face up to that thought and how things go tomorrow will in some ways be an ‘acid test’. I’ve probably done more work for the exams this time round than when I got my PPL over 30 years ago but when you’re young you’re still used to being in exam mode and it’s a bit harder when you’re older. Anyway, time to sign off this post and get my notes out again. Gotta get going if I’m going to do as well as I want to 😉

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my Mum – she’s 90 today, God bless her.

The winds are back. I won’t be flying for a little while for obvious reasons and Rosie’s on hols anyway. But I have great sympathy for all the other microlight flyers right now.

Remember this. It’s a 5-day weather forecast that I put into a post last September. Well, we seem to be drifting into the same sort of weather cycle as we had last Autumn. Take a look at the forecast below that I’ve just obtained from the Met Office for the same area, Canterbury, where I usually fly from.

Eerily similar isn’t it. Last Autumn the winds just went on and on (and on 😕 ) for day after day – it seemed more like weeks actually. Just hope that doesn’t happen again. Microlighters need, and are due, a good Summer, especially after the last couple, so let’s hope the cycle breaks soon and we move into weather that’s a bit more summery and settled.

It’s been 2 years since we got hold of Our Trike and although Ken was, and still is, a member of the BMAA, for all that time up until yesterday I still wasn’t. Well, I thought it was about time I joined that elite circle ( 😀 sarcasm never was my forte) so I flashed the Mastercard and pretty soon the deed was done. I don’t feel any different  – but just wait until my Captain’s cap and wings arrive in the post. 😎

What …….. they don’t?    🙁

I mentioned in an earlier post at the turn of the year that I was changing the theme – or appearance – of the Our Trike blog and for several months up until just recently I was using a bright green theme called Apples.

Well, it seems there was something not quite right about Apples. It appears that the designer had included some hidden code linking to another web site and a few days ago, because that site had gone down, it prevented Apples from loading. So anyone visiting Our Trike would find that the progress bar in the bottom right of their browser would stop half way and Our Trike would never actually come up.

So obviously I had to do something about it. I changed very quickly to another theme that worked but as it was one that I’d previously rejected, I didn’t want to stay with it. Since then I’ve installed and tried over twenty different ones. Some I just didn’t like but several that I did like either didn’t have features that I wanted or just didn’t work as they were supposed to.   😕

I installed a theme called Refresh which I liked better than any that I’d seen, including Apples. But dang me, there was something funny about some of the headings that were coming out too big and too dark. So I had to discard it and try something else that I wasn’t really happy with. But I just couldn’t let it drop. I thought I’d try to find Refresh on a different download site, which I did. I installed it and for some weird reason the layout was all over the place, so I deactivated it yet again. But while I was messing around trying to adapt the colours of another theme, I happened to activate Refresh again, and this time it was perfect. And now you see it!  😀

It just goes to show – persistence pays off in the end – and you must never take second best if you don’t really like it. A good lesson for everyone, I think. 😉

But it’s just about everything that’s needed to get G-MYRO back into the air. Here are a few pics of the stuff I picked up on Thursday from Galaxy Microlights.

In the left foreground (the small square unit with the blue label on) you can see the electric fuel pump. It’s only used for priming the system before you start the engine and should never need to be used in flight unless there’s some sort of problem with the fuel system. Once the system has been brought up to pressure (about 0.2 bar) the electric pump is switched off and the engine started. Then the mechanical pump (the round unit next to the electric pump in the picture) takes over. There’s actually a manual primer incorporated in the system (the black rubber bulb in the pic) but although the electric pump adds extra weight, AX3 owners seem to prefer the electric pump option.

Behind the fuel system stuff in the pic is the exhaust, which is in very good condition – not far off new actually. That’s really good news because they cost £hundreds to replace! By the way, anything to do with aviation – and that includes microlights to a great extent – you decide what you think something is worth and put a ‘0’ on the end! Well OK, not literally, but it certainly feels that way 🙄

Here’s a more detailed pic of the engine.

The engine is a Rotax 503 twin cylinder, air-cooled 2-stroke developing about 52HP. That’s not a lot but it’s enough for the AX3. It has twin carburettors (one per cylinder) and dual ignition, which means that there are two spark plugs per cylinder. This is just a fail-safe design and is preferred to a single ignition system, although there are many single ignition Rotaxes around which perform very well. But which system would you prefer if you were the pilot, eh?

On the front of the engine is mounted a 2.58:1 reduction gearbox which you can see is quite a small unit. The propeller fits directly onto the round flanged plate that you can see on the front of the gearbox using bolts through the holes that are visible. The standard prop is a 2-blade wooden 64″ x 46″ (64″ diameter with 46″ pitch) but many AX3 owners have now gone for a plastic 3-blade unit which is lighter and more efficient, but much more expensive. At the moment, I don’t have a prop for MYRO so I’ll be looking out for one.

To the right of the engine is the electric starter unit. Usually this would be attached to the engine in that position but Mark at Galaxy had removed it before I phoned him.

Here’s a pic of the instrument panel that I got off Mark.

It’s actually in pretty good condition and should clean up pretty well. Mark had to remove the two twin temperature gauges (Cylinder Head and Exhaust Gas temperatures) that had been in the smaller holes on the right hand side because he had already sold them to someone else. However, the sensor units were left attached to the wiring loom which will be very handy when I start work on MYRO. I’m a bit worried about the fuel pressure gauge on the left because it’s showing a reading without being connected at all. I know that the one that was in MYRO is now in MZEL so that could be a problem. The other two large holes take an altimeter and a vertical speed indicator both of which I think are still in MYRO. The panel still has airspeed and RPM gauges in it and I think that those also are still in MYRO. If so, I’ll be able to choose which ones I prefer. So there you are then. I think this panel will considerably enhance MYRO’s cockpit compared to the one that’s presently in there.

I am sure that it will be a real challenge sorting MYRO out and getting the engine and all the other stuff installed and working. But I’m really looking forward to it and now can’t wait to get going.

Now then…. really must make a start on clearing my garage 😕

Just out of interest, I thought I’d see what I could find out about the Cyclone AX3. I found a database that shows that between 1992 and 1996, a total of 38 Cyclone AX3/503s were built in the UK. In fact the number is undoubtedly more as there are gaps in the serial numbers listed. There are 36 Cyclone AX3/503s in the ‘active’ G-INFO database although that number includes G-MYME which we know for sure has now been destroyed. There are 4 AX3/503s in the de-registered G-INFO database, which now brings the total manufactured to at least 40. Incidentally, G-MYMF and G-MYFY are both in the de-registered list although pics of them still appear in the Gallery. There are also a few AX3/582s with the larger water-cooled Rotax engine, but I’ve ignored those as really they are a different model.

The last AX3/503 appears to be S/No 7253 G-MZDS. That’s interesting – so it’s no surprise that Rosie’s new steed, G-MZEL is still looking so fresh, as it’s S/No 7250, one of the last built.

G-MYRO came along in 1994, in about the middle of the series, so by then any bugs in the design had been ironed out. It was also nearly the last in the old serial number range, being S/No C4043211. The highest old serial that I found was C4043215, G-MYSO.

G-MYSO was put up for sale recently on Ebay by Nic Stoneman. Unfortunately it had been through a few trials in recent times. Nic had pegged it out over at least one very wet Welsh winter and the pics he sent me showed a very wet cockpit interior. The tie-down ropes had also chafed very badly and caused quite a lot of damage to the edges of the wings and control surfaces and Nic also mentioned to me that the last time he flew it, he had had a rather heavy landing. None of these would be a bar to getting MYSO back in the air and I’m sure the new owner has done so, or is working towards that aim, but the work involved was a bit too much for me at the time.

I’ve tried to get together as many pics of these AX3s as I could find and they are now all in their own Photo Gallery which you can see by clicking on the link or by going to the Galleries page and choosing Other AX3s. The registrations of all of the aircraft are pretty clear, except for the first one in the Gallery, which I think is MYFI that was owned by Medway Air Sports (same aircraft as in second shot – they also flew MYFV but that I think had different colours) and the last two which are my own shots of Rosie’s G-MZEL.

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….