{"id":13357,"date":"2018-03-01T19:11:38","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T19:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=13357"},"modified":"2018-03-05T20:12:11","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T20:12:11","slug":"taxy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/taxy\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

After I’d moved 28AAD, my French Weedhopper, over to Malbec from my garden in October 2016, I did power it up and down the runway a few times. This was mainly to get an idea of the thrust that the engine\/prop combination was developing as the prop was one I’d bought second-hand and trimmed down to what I hope will be a suitable length for its pitch.<\/p>\n

But ‘driving’ an aircraft’s fuselage without wings is totally different to taxying it with its wings attached and today, after completing the final couple of outstanding jobs (fitting the last few security rings to the aileron attachment bolts and replacing three batten cords that had snapped), I at last had the opportunity to do just that.<\/p>\n

I’d hoped that after the sunny, windy but cold conditions that we’ve experienced over the past few days since Wim and I were last over at Malbec (too cold with an icy northerly wind that had persuaded me to stay home in the warm) that the runway would be dry enough to taxy on, but although it was firm enough at the top, it was still too soft from its middle downwards. And there’s no point making grooves in the grass because the next thing we’ll know is that the ground will be rock hard and the grooves would still be there.<\/p>\n

So I had to content myself with starting up the Weedhopper and taxying it round and round in the yard outside the barn. There is plenty of room there and after all this time, it was great fun being able to sit inside with controls at hand and foot and be able to do it<\/p>\n

It’s been a long time since I’ve taxied an AX3 and I’d forgotten how much lighter the Weedhopper feels compared to the X-Air. With its comparatively huge nose wheel steering lock, it feels as though you can turn it on a sixpence – sorry, a 20 cent piece \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Here are some shots I took at the end of the afternoon before returning it to the barn and leaving for home.<\/p>\n

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There’s still quite a bit of cleaning and fettling to do. I gave the panel a wipe over for the photographs but the exterior and interior of the aircraft are filthy, although cleaning should not take too long once the weather warms up. But I can now finally turn my attention exclusively to the Savannah and I’m looking forward to finishing the work on its new tow-bar attachment and fitting its new prop at long last \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After I’d moved 28AAD, my French Weedhopper, over to Malbec from my garden in October 2016, I did power it up and down the runway a few times. This was mainly to get an idea of the thrust that the engine\/prop combination was developing as the prop was one I’d bought second-hand and trimmed down … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13357"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13430,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13357\/revisions\/13430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}