{"id":13678,"date":"2018-04-18T23:21:52","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T21:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=13678"},"modified":"2018-04-18T23:25:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T21:25:11","slug":"still-no-flying-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/still-no-flying-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Still no flying for me"},"content":{"rendered":"

But not for everyone. Victor received a phone call yesterday from a pilot based in south-east France in the Dr\u00f4me who wanted to drop into Malbec for a visit and asked my advice on whether our runway was yet dry enough to use.<\/p>\n

I had to say that sadly it still wasn’t, so Victor suggested that the visitor should instead go into Philippe’s airfield LF2468 at Mauzens-et-Miremont a few kilometres as the crow (or ULM) flies to the west of Malbec, which is now dry.<\/p>\n

In the recent taxy tests that I’ve been making in the Weedhopper at Malbec, I’ve been disappointed that even though I’ve been half-way down the runway by the time I’ve closed the throttle, 28AAD has only ever got up to about 50 kmh. This would be nowhere near fast enough for a take off and I was worried that maybe I’d over-adjusted its brakes which might be binding.<\/p>\n

So Victor and I dropped into Malbec this afternoon to check. In fact the wheels were all running freely, so the problem can only be down to the softness of the runway. As I wish to avoid any form of take off incident in 28AAD at all costs, it looks as though I’ll have to wait until the runway is bone dry and hard before making my first attempt.<\/p>\n

Then Victor’s phone rang and it was the visiting pilot saying that he’d landed at Mauzens and that he needed some fuel, so off we went in the Mehari to pick some up and take it over to him.<\/p>\n

His name was Fran\u00e7ois and he’d arrived in the club Nynja (www.ulmevasion26.com), a very smartly turned out aircraft as the following pictures show.<\/p>\n

\"Nynja\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Nynja\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Nynja\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We had a chinwag at Mauzens for a while and then went off with Fran\u00e7ois uncomfortably loaded(!) into the Mehari’s rear luggage space to look for the chambre d’h\u00f4te that he’d booked for the night a few kilometres from the airfield. We found it and were lucky enough to be treated to a beer each by the landlady before Victor and I bade our adieus and departed.<\/p>\n

Victor dropped me off at Malbec to pick up my car and while I was there I checked the runway yet again. It was a little bit firmer but still too soft for the narrow wheels of the Weedhopper and X-Air so I’m now beginning to think about a plan B to take advantage of the current good weather. If it’s still soft tomorrow I think that I’ll have to make a bridge arrangement out of three planks to get the Savannah out of its hangar.<\/p>\n

I’ll then be able to give it the good clean that it needs from having been left uncovered in the hangar for so many months. Then if the runway is still soft, because the Savannah has relatively wide tyres and would do little if any damage, I’m thinking about doing one take off from Malbec and flying it over to Galinat whose runway is dry and the grass of which Christian, the owner, has just cut.<\/p>\n

I’d have to phone him first but I’m thinking about then leaving it there for a few days until normal service has been resumed at Malbec and I can fly it back in again. Desperate times call for desperate measures and as each day passes, I’m becoming more and more desperate about not flying \ud83d\ude10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But not for everyone. Victor received a phone call yesterday from a pilot based in south-east France in the Dr\u00f4me who wanted to drop into Malbec for a visit and asked my advice on whether our runway was yet dry enough to use. I had to say that sadly it still wasn’t, so Victor suggested … 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-13678","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\/13678","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=13678"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13689,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13678\/revisions\/13689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}