Useful day

Another gorgeous flying day, but no flying for me again. The aim for today was to get all of the metal fuselage parts finished so I can get Chris to inspect them. I have to do this as a condition of the repair – they must be inspected by a BMAA inspector before they are fitted and as I’m going to the August club meeting on Tuesday and Chris will be there, I’ll be able to pop them in the back of my car and take them along with me. I had a few silly setbacks along the way eg the golden colour nose wheel spindle brackets are ‘handed’ (left and right) because of the way they have worn – having noticed this, I then proceeded to build the complete fork assembly before realising that I’d fitted them the wrong way round 😯

Despite this and chipping a couple of bits of paint off in the process, they came up pretty well – at least as good as MYRO’s originals that were damaged, I think.

By cherry picking bits from MYRO and bits that came with the new forks, I ended up with a very nice fork assembly. I was able to use all MYRO’s nuts and bolts and both of MYRO’s suspension dampers which were undamaged, but I took the opportunity nevertheless to touch the paint up that I put on last year. I also finished off the nose strut, as I’d hoped I would, so here’s a shot of all the parts ready for inspection and eventual fitting.

I was very pleased with the progress I made today. I can’t believe how long it’s taken to get to this point, although in fairness I have spent most of my time working on the pod. Once Chris has given the parts his seal of approval, I can press on with fitting them. The first thing will be to remove MYRO’s screen so I can get unhindered access to the back of the panel to repair it. I’m still a bit concerned because having checked MYRO’s old panel in my garage, it looks as though the one in the aircraft could be a bit distorted following the accident. I won’t know for sure until I’ve separated it from the panel top so I’m keeping my fingers crossed until then, as I really don’t want to do a complete reinstall of all of the gauges and wiring if I can avoid it 😐