2010 - Mainly in Pictures - Part 2

2010 was a great year and on occasion I even took the pictures to prove it.

G-CEDI & G-BSOR on the ground at Compton Abbas after the first leg of the day's intended route

Now that's a nice looking aircraft.

How says roads don't have an impact on the environment.

After leaving Compton Abbas we headed off to Spamfield @ on the IOW. Spamfield usually takes place on the same weekend as the IOW music festival.

Newport & the festival site Festival site in close up

On to the Spamfield event @ Sandown airfield (now almost closed) on the IOW. This is pretty much the biggest gathering of microlights in the UK.

Spotty or what....................................................................Very colourful

Its a Shadow with attitude, you have got to appreciate the irony!

On the other hand this shiny aluminum offering really does have attitude!

Coming back across the water to the mainland you get the chance to fly over am amazing selection of bays, coves and inlets around Hayling Island, Thorny Island, and Chichester Harbour

2010 - Mainly in pictures - Part 1

Thought you might like to see some of things we did and saw while puttering about in G-CEDI in 2010.

Flex wing on the ground at Colemore Common on a very cold January morning in Jan 2010.

Mount Caburn fort - just to the East of Lewes

G-CEDI reflected in a rainbow ring - I believe this is called a Brocken Spectre

Les & I had the great privilege this year of being able to take part in the first ever Wootton Bassett microlight flypast. We were in the 2nd wave of about 48 aircraft. It was a great privilege and a worthy cause...well done to the organisers and everyone who took part. The rally point was Kemble airfield which has a massive tarmac runway with a eastern threshold that was long enough to easily accommodate nearly 50 machines!

Aircraft moving out to start lining up for the departure of the 2nd wave

You realise just how small our machines are when you see them up close and personnel to the likes of this 747.

With nearly 50 aircraft flying in quite close proximity there was plenty of opportunity to get some air to air shots

End of part 1, lots more to follow.

G-CEDI - 2011 The plan so far

Well what a start to the New Year, to say it didn't quite go to plan would be a major understatement.

The idea had been to take her out for a quick buzz around the block on Monday 3rd Jan before putting her away in order to carry out some routine maintenance and a number of mods i.e.

• External fuel filler capability
• Split doors
• New (comfortable seats) from the Nynja

Well she started up OK after only a little persuasion. Warm up seemed fine, all the dials reading normal etc. Nothing in the circuit so we lined up on 06 and hit the throttles. Everything seemed absolutely fine till we had just crossed the airfield boundary at about 300 feet when the engine started spluttering and losing power. I throttled off and reapplied power. Although the engine didn't stop there wasn't a lot of power there so checking my height again, 300ft still I performed as tight a 180 as I could and headed back to the field this time coming in on runway 24. Although it was tight I'd managed to get on the centre line, cut the throttles and glided in. Once on the ground the engine ran smooth and clear, strange. OK time to return to the hanger and have a good look round to see what had happened!

Unfortunately this was were commonsense deserted us. After taking the covers off and test running the engine for a good 30 mins and not being able to find any specific problem we decided the problem was probably caused by carb icing. Not wishing to risk all quite so soon we decided to carry out a number of test runs down the runway to see if the problem returned.

After two uneventful runs and much debate we decided to give it another go, big mistake. After further warming up and additional checks and a plan of what we would do if the problem reoccurred we lined up on runway 06. Full throttle everything fine, wheels off and still looking good. Unfortunately at around 150 - 200ft the problem reoccurred. We had drifted slightly to the left on take-off so our initial plan to land straight ahead had to be dumped. Once again I put the plane into a sharp left hand turn putting us right on the edge of a stall. The engine was still delivering some power and I was able level out and head back towards runway 24. After a quick assessment of the situation I decided that we weren't going to reach the field this time so I put her down pararell to the runway about 50m to the west of the strip in a ploughed field.

Although I would certainly have rather made the runway under the circumstances I couldn't have wished for a better landing. Straight in on little power holding off for as long as possible, main wheels first quickly followed by the nose wheel, full stop in less than 30m.

Of course on the ground the engine seemed fine again....bloody typical. From what we could see there was no damage to the aircraft, not even a bent front wheel, amazing considering the state of the soft ground.

Now we had the fun prospect of getting the plane out of a very muddy field and back to the airfield. Bearing in mind that the flight was less than a minute it took over 3 hours to move the plane 50m across a ploughed field , though a barbed wire fence and over a couple of ditches. I would like to say it was a fantastic bonding exercise and great fun but basically it was very hard, dirty work but we managed it.

After a quick wash down we were even able to fold the wings and get her back in the trailer before the light eventually failed on us.

G-CEDI - 2010 The Year that was!

Well 2010 was a great year but unfortunately I was so busy I didn't have time to tell anyone about it.

In brief:

• Still Flying G-CEDI
• Sold G-MVCC
• Started competition flying, 3 events
• Held a open day at the airfield for friends and family
• Took part in the Wootton Bassett fly past
• First flight across to France

Obviously lots more besides but hopefully I'll get the chance to post a few more items in 2011.

The Blue Box has landed – The arrival of G-CEDI’s new home @ Deanland.

So there we were Les & I, the proud new owners of G-CEDI.

The next problem was where to hanger it. Hanger space at Deanland is rarer then hen’s teeth or rocking horse poo combined so we knew that was pretty much out of the question. We didn’t want to leave it outside all year round even with a good set of covers on.

So we needed a truck body or a trailer but unfortunately we had managed to choose a plane that even with the wings folded and everything stored was too big to fit into any standard sized unit especially a trailer. So the search was on for a non standard truck body that was big enough to take DI but could still be made to look like a trailer. E-bay, auto trader, Gumtree, we tried them all and bid on a few as well.

Les came up trumps after a couple of missed offers when we eventually managed to win an auction on eBay. OK so along with a lovely Skyranger Microlight we now owned a very large (27ft x 8ft x 8ft) blue truck body. OK problem number two. The truck body was in Essex and we needed it in Deanland. Now you wouldn’t have thought that it would be that difficult to get a big box from Essex to East Sussex, wrong. After much haggling and persuading and drawing up of plans and promises of assistance I found a company willing and most importantly able to transport something this big on something that would be able to get down the lanes to our airfield.

OK the big day arrived and the weather was great. We were told that we wouldn’t be required at the Essex end so we waited back in Sussex hoping that the driver was able to find the pick up site OK and that it fitted on his truck OK. We had hoped that it would be with us by 1200 but in the end it was gone 1400 by the time it arrived at the entrance to the airfield. I was rather shocked by the size of the truck that delivered our container but very impressed with the skill of the driver being able to manoeuvre it through the gates and into the airfield without removing too much of the overhead foliage. The next challenge was to drop our container in between two existing units preferably without causing too much damage!

Well it took at least another hour to get it on the ground but in the end we managed it. For now it was balanced on bricks, breeze blocks and blocks of wood but at least it was down.

Bearing in mind that the container had cost us £300 quid and more again to get it transported this was the first time we had seen it so it was a great relief to find that it matched all the descriptions and pictures we had been sent.

Of course this wasn’t the end of things as the trailer now had to be made fit for receiving our aircraft.

Alterations and amendments required included:

Construction of a lower tail gate
Fitment of a tow bar
Fitment of a set of axels and wheels
Cutting out a section of the front supports to fit side tunnels to allow the passing of the rear tail-plane and elevators
Fitting of a side door
Painting of the floor
Construction of a work bench and cupboards

By late September all the above work and much more was complete and G-CEDI was ready to be put away for the winter….yippee.

G-CEDI – Plans for 2010

Well it’s been a while since I last posted, over a year I think. Going to try better in 2010, that’s as close to a New Years Resolution as I’m going to get!

Well lots of changes to report, the key ones being:

Bought a 50% share in a Skyranger – G-CEDI with Les C.
G-MVCC is about but about to go up for sales having now sat in a corner of Lew’s field for a few months – anyone want to buy a 30yr old Shadow?
The Skyranger boys now have the biggest trailer on the field, even surpassing Tony’s monster!

The Skyranger is a side by side two seater powered by a Rotax 912u engine. The weight limit is a full 450kg which now means I have the option of carrying a few slightly heavier friends than had previously been the case and lots and lots of fuel, especially with Aaron riding shot gun.

Memorable trips in 2009 included:

Numerous jaunts over to Sandown on the IOW
Popham
Andrewsfield and
Maypole

Since purchase we have carried out lots of cleaning and tidying up work with the main undertaking being the modification of the front cowling to include an oil inspection flap, just a minor mod! We have also just completed the painting of the spinner and spats in a really fetching bright red!

Plans for DI in 2010:

Extend the repainting to the bottom cowling and door edges
More draft sealing, endless project of Les’s
Get the GPS officially mod’ed
Carry out the mod for fitting an external fuel filler system, no more nasty smelly accidents hopefully
Fitment of split doors, a possibility

As for flying plans for 2010 we do have some quite ambitious ideas but alas neither the time nor money to probably bring them all to fruition. Basic target to include:

1st flight across the channel
1st flight to France from IOW
Take part in at least a couple of rounds of the BMAA National Microlight comp
Try to take in a few more BMAA events this year i.e. Popham and Spamfield!

Well those are the ideas for this year; we will as ever just have to see what happens!!

Let’s hope for lots of BLUE SKY days in 2010

Grey Old Days - Late post but interesting story

After the fun and games of last summer the reality of Microlight flying in the British winter has really set in.

For various reasons (time, weather, broken plane, lack of sufficient brownie points etc) I wasn't able to get out and play between the end of Sept and the close of 2008. Unfortunately I lost a lot of time trying to sort out the problems with my leaking fuel tank..what a pain that has turned out to be!

The main problem now seems to be getting my timings right. Either I'm busy and the weather is crap or the weather is fine and I'm busy. The other gauling issue is trying to find someone available to take up the offer of the dog kennel. If the Shadow has one major drawback its the "two" person build requirement. Fine if you can afford or find space in a hanger not so good if you can't!

What all the above means is that for the first time since I qualified is that I managed to fall foul of the 90 day rule. This basically states that if you haven't flown for 90 days you must complete three take off and landings before you can take a passenger again.

That is why I found myself on a dull, damp grey afternoon in Dec at Deanland airfield. Under normally circumstances I don't think I would have bothered but with the need to requalify and the prospect of decent weather forecast for the weekend I'd dragged myself and my reluctant helper (wife Karen) down to the airfield to see what could be achieved.