Moving on again

After my electrical episode, I contacted a local electrician the next day who said he’d be along at 5.30 pm to see what was up. Typically, he didn’t turn up and I’ve had no further word from him at all since then, so he’s definitely not going onto my Christmas card list! Luckily I had my generator to fall back on so with a couple more extension leads that I got hold of at the local Carrefour, I was able to run some temporary lights and my little fan heater and boil a kettle, so life wasn’t that uncomfortable. On the second day after the disaster I contacted another electrician who turned out to be a real diamond. He said he’d drop in at 2.30 pm the same day and turned up early at 2.15 pm. What a difference! He spotted the problem in a few minutes (local knowledge I guess) and had the whole system back up again in less than half an hour. He then went round the whole house and checked every socket and power outlet before declaring the whole thing safe and after the best part of an hour’s work charged me only 35€ for his services. I told him that once I’d resolved the issues with EDF and most likely had the house converted to single phase, I wanted him to come back, replace my old fuse box with an earth-leak contact breaker system and check the whole of my electrics out, replacing the bits that needed it, and I look forward to giving him the chance to do so.

Once he’d got the system back up and running, I was still, of course, left sitting on a heap of damaged electrical equipment, including my SFR Neufbox that had provided me with both Internet access and my VOIP based phone system. Plus the Philips DECT three handset network that I’d brought with me from England and had plugged into the Neufbox was also defunct. I phoned SFR customer service and the young lady on the other end of my (mobile) phone originally told me, with much laughter from both of us as we conversed in French, that SFR would send me out a new Neufbox and that I should then just return the old one. However, she then went off the line for a few minutes, literally as my mobile connection dropped out, and when she phoned me back she said she had some better news for me, and that if I took my old Neufbox to the SFR boutique in the Leclerc shopping centre at Trelissac (about 20 kms away on the way to Perigueux), a new one would be waiting for me to pick up in 2 hours time. What brilliant service! And it was! So after picking it up I also then nipped into Leclerc and bought a new Gigaset three handset DECT phone system with the result that the same evening I was back up with Internet and phone. Mind you, it took me over half of the next day to reload my telephone directory into the new system 😐

Since then I’ve decided that there’s no point waiting for EDF to make its decision about compensation, especially as I haven’t even written them a letter yet, and that I’d have to start purchasing replacements for the main things that have been damaged. I’ve purchased a couple of items from the UK, such as a new Freesat box, Humax this time, and a Gunson automatic battery charger, and I’m mulling over whether to buy a new DVD player as well from the UK, where it looks as though such things are much cheaper than here in France. Obviously, though, I’ll have to source a new microwave locally so I’ll start looking around for one in the early part of next week.

In the meantime, what of the X-Air? Well, some fuse holders and fuses that I’d ordered from the UK arrived a couple of days ago. I’d tried to source these locally but when I only want a couple of glass fuses, I resent having to buy a whole box of the ruddy things because the local supplier refuses to break it down. I’m afraid that I still think that in many aspects, the French have quite a lot to learn about customer service and giving the customer what he wants, especially at this time of economic uncertainty. It was cheaper for me to order in the UK and pay carriage for just what I wanted than to buy two boxes of fuses locally that would probably then just be sitting on a shelf in my ‘cave’ for ever. Well done British enterprise, and especially Vehicle Wiring Products of Derby who I used a lot when I was still in the UK and will probably keep doing so even though I’m now over here.

So I’m just about set to complete the new X-Air panel. Today has been glorious – temperature 20 degrees Celsius or a bit more even and sunshine all day – but even though the RPM gauge that I bought through the small ads arrived today, I decided not to press on with the panel and to cut my grass for the first time this year. It was very long all around the X-Air and as all my neighbours had their mowers whirring away, I thought I might as well do the same. In any case, it will make working on the X-Air much easier now, and as the whole week is forecast to be dry and sunny with the temperature getting up to 26 degrees Celsius mid-week, there will be plenty of opportunity. The RPM gauge is even better than I expected, by the way, and I think it was a very good and wise buy, as pictures of the panel will ultimately show. That’s if it works, that is! I’m sure it will, as the seller assured me that it’s in perfect working order 🙂

So it’s just a matter of dropping all the gauges etc into the new panel and wiring them all up. It’s not as complicated as it sounds as the following system diagram shows.

I’ve made some to changes to the system that was installed as I said I would. For a start, the Aux switch now just controls the power sockets, which I think is sensible, and the key switch becomes live only when the Master is turned on. As well as operating the starter itself via a 10A fuse, it is also a switch in its own right when it returns to its ‘On’ position after the starter has been activated, so I’ve used it to run the Hobbs (hours) meter which I think is the best option. Also the temperature gauge only works when the Master switch is in the ‘On’ position. So it’s quite simple and straightforward, really, which is often the way of things when they’ve been thought through. I’m a firm believer in the old saying, ‘If it looks right, it probably is’ and I think this is true this time. Before any UK X-Air owners reading this say, ‘Oi, my system’s different to that!’, don’t forget that UK aircraft have a push button starter, whereas mine has a key start, and I’ve also installed the 12V power sockets that I want and stuck to the Rotax approved wiring system. And the nice thing is that it’s ‘what I want’ and not what someone in the back of the BMAA Tech Office thinks I should have 😀

So tomorrow’s the day of the big leap-forward and by the end of the day, I’m hoping to have the panel finished, fitted and the X-Air’s engine running again. And finally, two little bits of extra news. My neighbour Jean-Claude has said that he’ll have no objection to my eventually taking off from his field to fly the X-Air over to Galinat, which is great news, because it means that I can finish all of my work on it here at home and not have to transport the aircraft by road and assemble it on the airfield. And the last bit of news is the best of all. I bumped into Christian, the owner of Galinat today, and in our conversation mentioned that we needed to discuss what rent I’d be paying. He gave me a very old-fashioned look that only the French can do properly and said, ‘Roger, all we all do is look after the airfield together’. So that’s it – what a super surprise and how lucky I am with the way things are turning out. But maybe it shouldn’t really come as a total surprise because, after all, C’est la France!