Job done, properly this time…. yes, really!

I was up at about 6.30am and rushing around right from the outset to try to get everything done before today’s planned Check Flight. I hadn’t wanted to tempt fate by planning my route last night so that was the first job after having breakfast. Maidstone and Rochester are slap bang between Linton and Stoke, so because of the need to go around them, it gave me a legitimate reason to go up to Stoke on one side of them and back on the other and get a bit of flying time in even though MYRO isn’t permitted. Cunning eh 😉

Later I was off to the car accessory shop to be there as soon as they opened at 8.30am and after a false start, having to return home and pick up MYRO’s key which I’d forgotten, I was then down at the field and ready to replace the fuel pump vacuum hose. I started by ground running MYRO’s engine and there was fuel pressure there, more than yesterday after having had a chance to ‘rest’, which is what I found previously, but I still had a decision to make. I decided to go for it and swap the hose.

All went well until I got to the plastic ‘T’ piece that splits the hose from the crankcase between the upper and lower Mikunis – its diameter is slightly larger than the ID of the new tubing and it was a heck of a job to get the tubing on enough to make it secure. I thought it only right to give Chris a ring to let him know I’d be delayed and I did so again later, getting through to his wife Karen it transpired, to keep him and Martyn, who would be doing the Check Flight, in the picture. I ground ran the engine again after I’d finished and as there was pressure there, although still not as much as I expected based on my experience with MZEL, I decided to give it a go anyway. As it happens, the decision proved to be right because once airborne and in the cruise, the pressure rose to a fairly respectable 0.3 bar (the maximum specified is 0.4 bar) which I was happy with. Here’s the route I took.

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My first leg took me up to the east of Maidstone via Leeds Castle and Sittingbourne. The castle looked magnificent and one of my first flights when MYRO is permitted will be to return for some photographs because I didn’t think that today would be a good day for taking pictures. I skirted the western edge of the Isle of Sheppey and then turned left to head for Stoke across the Medway estuary. What a great area this is for taking pictures, with all kinds of sea traffic in view and the large container ships in the Thamesport docks on the Isle of Grain. I can’t wait!

I could see Stoke quite clearly from some way off – being next to the shoreline it’s very easy to find anyway – so as nobody was on the radio, I just called in blind as other traffic was doing, joined downwind right hand for runway 06 and landed. I found Chris straight away and as Martyn was already prepared, he was pretty soon straight off for the Check Flight. I’m very pleased to say that after the usual rude banter you get about AX3s (I can’t think why.. 😕 ) he reported back afterwards that in fact MYRO flew very well indeed. That made me very happy after all the hard work I’ve put in 🙂

I had a cuppa and a cheese scone while I was waiting for Martyn to return. We had a brief chat as we’ll be meeting again tomorrow to complete the formalities and pretty soon after I was ready to go for the return leg to Linton. I’d taken 10 litres or so of fuel with me so I put that into the tank and off I went. This time I took a route to the west of Rochester that would take me back via the M20/M26 junction at Wrotham. The view of Rochester Marina and Rochester Castle was spectacular and again I vowed to come back again soon to take some photographs. I switched to Rochester’s frequency because the airfield was clearly visible not that far off to my left and I wanted to keep a listening watch out and monitor traffic. The airfield looked amazingly like a Rochester Flight Simulator scenery I started but have never finished which made me think that I must get back onto that sometime.

Although I was skirting around the edge of Rochester’s zone, I was amazed by the size of the circuits those GA boys were flying! There seemed to be aircraft flying below me (I was at about 2000ft) and not that far off to my left on several occasions and I was actually outside the boundary of the published airfield zone! I began to descend after Rochester and pretty soon I was at my intended turn point at the M20/M26 junction. A turn to the left and soon I was above the golf course at Wrotham Heath and then over the river to the west of Teston and Wateringbury.

Then I spotted the water tower at Coxheath and to the right beyond that, Linton church. I knew that if I couldn’t spot Linton this time, I’d never live it down but then there was the airfield, still several miles ahead, but as plain as day. I knew that there wouldn’t be much flying going on so I decided to extend my flight for a little longer, skirt down towards the south and call up to join base leg for runway 11. And so my first flight out and back from Linton came to an end. The approaches to the field are so clear from both directions compared to where I did my training that you feel so much more in control. I crept in over the threshold and amazingly stopped within a few yards so I could turn off the runway and stop outside the hangar where MYRO is tied down. I was very pleased with that I have to say 😀

So that’s it – all I have to do now is send the Permit paperwork off again. It’s been a bit of an uphill struggle at times – not least over the last few weeks – but at last it’s ‘job done’ and hopefully I’ll have MYRO’s permit by next weekend. Just in time for the weather to change someone told me today 😐

I’m also pleased to say that the Arplast prop is a huge improvement over the original GSC wooden 2-blader that was originally on MYRO and is now on MZEL. It’s quieter and it also seems to me to be much more efficient. I’m surprised at how much better MYRO’s fuel consumption is compared to MZEL – I’ve not flown enough yet to get an accurate idea but it seems to be coming out at around 11 litres/hr which is much lower. Mind you, I’ve only been flying one up. I’ll start to keep more accurate records when I start flying MYRO regularly because I’m naturally very keen to find out.

Is this the end of this chapter? I think so. I hope so anyway 😉

I’ve now added a video to the Gallery HERE of the second check-flight.