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I had a chance to look back through the photos of a summer’s flying as Storm Amy battered the north of the UK:

It turns out it was not a bad summer after all. Took my old colleague Alan flying once his air ambulance shift was over:

Saw some pretty good sights while instructing. Seen them many times before but it’s great to experience the student’s first look…

Queued for ages at the pumps on hot summer days:

Flew once again into the “pop-up” airfield at Montrose for the open day. It’s more of a Cub field but the RV managed admirably. Hoping to take the Cub next year once the wings are back:

Did some tailwheel differences training in an Emeraude. This involved circuits at the grass strip at Lempitlaw in the Borders and also at Eshott in Northumbria for the hard runway.

Also managed to get on telly again. I’ve been retired for 17 months now but still keep popping up like a bad rash:

Lots of instructing on the three school types at Perth. I quite like the Tecnam P-Mentor:

Storm Amy didn’t just batter the north of the UK. Specifically it battered our removal men as they loaded furniture for the house move. Downsizing is all the rage. This was taken the week before the move as we transported the SSDR Eindecker to dry storage at Neil’s mancave near Laurencekirk. It needs tinkering on the electrics as previously reported but I was only halfway through when the house completion date was agreed.

There’s no workshop at the new house (yet) so the Eindecker needed a new home:

I have taken a couple of weeks off for the house move, but I suspect the heavy rainfall recently may have produced a few of these next situations.

Water in the fuel sample! We check every flight. The avgas is dyed blue to differentiate it from water and other types of fuel (UL91 is red).

In heavy rain water can occasionally get in past the fuel cap seals, and this is the result.:

It took four or five samples to remove the water and get a perfectly blue liquid. Normally we might find one or two tiny droplets of water from condensation in the tank but this was a good’un!

Water doesn’t burn very well, that’s why we check the fuel.

Back to work soon, with checks 🙂

Having just written the last post about Kilo Sierra the latest AOPA magazine flopped through the mailbox and guess what I found? The aircraft is for sale!

If you do buy it, can I have a shot? Another shot.

(and counting…)

July 1981, Woodgate Aviation, Belfast Aldergrove airport. The start of the PPL course.

I’d had previously done little bit of flying with the Air Cadets but this was the start of formal lessons. We flew in one of two Piper Warrior aircraft: G-BFWK (Whiskey Kilo) and G-BGKS (Kilo Sierra).

Kilo Sierra 44 years ago:

And Kilo Sierra today:

Kilo Sierra is still going strong. Sadly Whiskey Kilo, which was my first solo aircraft, was de-registered in 1998…originally I had no idea why, but a little research shows that the aircraft was involved in a mid-air collision with another PA28 near Newtownards in 1987. Both aircraft landed safely, but WK couldn’t deploy the flaps, which led to a bounced landing and a collapsed nosewheel. This folks, is why we look out for traffic in the circuit area and why we practice flapless landings!

(As an aside, autocorrect just wrote “flawless landings” – if only!)

Perhaps being unable to operate the flaps was a symptom of distortion to the wing, or the nosewheel collapse caused significant damage. Either way, it looks like it was uneconomical to repair.

Poor Whiskey Kilo.

G-BFWK. First solo flight. 1730 to 1745 on 27 July 1981 at Belfast Aldergrove. 15 minutes.

———————————————————

Fast forward 44 years and a flying visit to Siljan Air Park in Sweden for a hangar party.

New neighbours Timm and Corinna have just had a massive hangar put in on the plot next to us. They invited all the neighbours round to christen it. As you can see from Timm’s toys, they needed the big hangar! I’m not too sure about the full height roller door at the back…maybe they also have a double-decker bus?

I did thank Timm and Corinna profusely for inviting all the neighbours around to celebrate the 44th anniversary of my first solo…

At some point the shots came out…this stuff is particularly vile. Having said that, I did partake of one. Just one – I have memories from about 6 years ago of Klaus bringing round a bottle of “O P Andersen” to one of the barbecues and I had a few. The next day was a write-off as all I could do was lie on the sofa and not move.

This stuff is the type of drink that if you pretended to down the shot in one, but actually threw it over your shoulder, it would have evaporated before it hit the ground! And if it did reach the ground it would probably strip the covering off the floor. In deference to Timm’s new floor I had to drink it…

Our view out of the main room used to be a stand of trees, now it’s a hangar and apron. I quite like the new view:

Siljan Air Park is in Siljansnäs in the centre of Sweden. There are a lot of lakes around, including the nearby Siljan which is the country’s seventh largest lake. As a consequence there are a few floatplanes at the air park, such as the Cessna 182 above and this Thurston Teal:

It’s not all floatplanes…here’s neighbour Calle in his Fisher Celebrity going up for a quick evening 10 minute flight…

Another view of Timm’s 182 with lights. Didn’t get to peek in the hangar doors in the dark to see what they looked like as at this time of the year it doesn’t really get dark.

Not to be left out, our own hangar, with summer resident Husky all the way from Switzerland. Owner Chris took a week to fly up from the Zurich area at the beginning of the summer…

A bit of excitement as the local air ambulance arrived on a shout. The patient went by road so it wasn’t too serious. I had a good chat with the pilot and swapped HEMS stories for a while.

After the air ambulance flew away, Chris landed and taxied up to the hangar, allowing me a good look at the inside of his aircraft. I hadn’t clocked the fact that it has lots of glass instrumentation, including the Garmin750 unit which we had on the Helimed aircraft.

Just a quick flying visit by airliner to go to the party…it was great to see the place in July when it was busy. Normally it’s very quiet. July is the month when Sweden goes on holiday…all the campsites were packed, the parking areas were full of campervans, and most importantly there was lots of flying going on at the airfield. Next year we want to spend a bigger block of time there, not just a week – or in this case three nights!

On a quick holiday in Brittany, we went to a café for a cup of coffee. Check out the windsock in the background! Exotic location – who says romance is dead?

We were on Quiberon, a peninsula on the south coast which is a bit of a holiday destination. The Aerodrome Quiberon had a handy car park – in the centre of the “island” within walking distance of most places. Walking too far was not recommended due to the heat…

The airfield was a quiet little place with the occasional movement…

There were people in the aero club so I wandered in for a chat in my fractured French. I managed to come away with a Pilote Breton hat, seen here airborne over Perthshire later:

Down at the nearest beach, we found out that it was named after the aerodrome. Every airfield should have a beach.

The end of the asphalt is close to the shore, so traffic onto runway 29 comes whistling over the sunbathers, the path and the road before landing…

Back home from our Breton break, and straight back into instructor stuff. A two yearly revalidation flight in an RV8:

Differences training in a lovely Sting, much nicer than our old one:

Taking friends flying:

Normal instruction in the typical Scottish summer weather:

And just general RVing.

A nice variety. Being semi-retired is awesome.

Time for a 25 hour inspection and oil change on the RV. Oil flows much better out of the drain valve when it’s warm, so what better excuse to go flying?

David is a Scottish Aero Club member who recently gave up flying; he still comes to the club to help in the hangar. Since I was going anyway, why not share the flight?

We headed out over the hills and then back in. After 40 minutes David had been flying again and the oil was nice and hot so it was straight into the hangar…

…cowlings off and oil drained:

As I’ve often said before, whoever designed the quick release oil drain deserves a medal.

Dad’s old petrol can probably belonged in a museum when he was using it for lawnmower fuel in the 1970’s…it’s still going strong as a waste oil receptacle.

The oil filter was replaced and the old one cut open for inspection. It’s a messy job using the vice to squeeze out all the oil from the filter element to check for metal particles…no nasty surprises this time!

As well as the oil change, the aircraft got a thorough inspection, a good clean, and a proper lube. Tyre pressures checked as well. Then it was time to fly!

Ron is an associate member and is often at the club, he jumped at the chance to go for a flight…

Another trip to the north over the hills…and another satisfied passenger.

The good weather brought everyone out and it was busy at the pumps:

As well as getting the oil change and service done, I also heard back from the Cub wing repairers. There is progress and work is proceeding. We may have the wings back soon…

I’ll (non-alcoholic) drink to that!

After a spell of good weather, also known as the “Spring of Deception” – the bad weather is back…

I’m supposed to be instructing in that lot tomorrow…

Looking forward to hotter days and grass stuck under hubcaps:

Some people say that we are coming into the start of the flying season. They should have told the weather man…

It hasn’t been 100% doom and gloom, there have been some nice days:

Looking north up the A9 road towards Pitlochry…

A little bit of low cloud caused a reroute. Not that there WAS a route as such, just a bimble around the countryside. Also known as FACIT – F*** About, Call It Training…

Nobody about on the traffic radar:

We spotted smoke on the hills and wandered over to have a look:

If we’d been in the Cub we could have flown around pretending to call in artillery fire, like 2nd Lieutenant Walter Mitty.

The Cub is still grounded. I went to visit the engineer who is doing the repair and it looks like it’ll be complete late summer.

But in slightly better news, it will probably be a splice repair, not a whole spar.

In the meantime we can still wander round the countryside like this

A few days after the previous flight, it was so gloomy that this was the view of the airfield from the downwind leg:

We landed off that circuit!

Aaaand…normal service is resumed!

Well, that’s the wings away for assessment and repair…

Another team was assembled and the wings walked onto the truck. A new definition of “wing walking”…

We used Paul Ponsonby for the transport. They are a haulage company who specialise in moving aircraft or bits of aircraft around. They advertise in the flying magazines and have a good reputation.

Driver Dave certainly knew his stuff and the wings were soon secured against the sidewalls. Also loaded was a small box of bits from Pete ( who lent us the use of his wing cradle ) – he was sending a couple of Tipsy Nipper ailerons to the same restorer:

The ailerons are seen here lying loose before they were secured. Just in case you wondered. As you can see there was plenty of room in the truck and it made sense to let Pete take advantage.

Now we wait to see how much it’s going to cost…

In other news I’ve been checked out on a new type:

This is a Tecnam P-Mentor. Built in Italy, it’s much more modern than the C152 and PA28 aircraft that I’m currently instructing in…the cockpit is a sea of TV screens:

Great fun. Looking forward to flying the Tecnam more in the future.

If the weather would just cooperate..!

Finally! We’re ready to take the wings off the Cub and get them away for survey and repair. Rather than fabricate a wing stand we managed to borrow one from a friend who has just assembled his RV8 project – amazingly they turned out to be a perfect fit for the Cub wings:

The good thing about being in the big hangar is all the kit that we can borrow to help during the process:

The result…

It only took about 30 minutes, with a little help from a small team we put together:

The cradle has wheels so it was easy to wheel the wings out of the way:

They will wait patiently until the transport turns up. They are off to a specialist vintage and classic engineering company for assessment:

I’m not looking forward to the bill..!

Typical December weather:

…even with some snow thrown in:

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, some aviation was achieved. The RV6 over the fog filled valley of the Tay at Ballinluig:

Back in the hangar and safe from the elements, the Cub inches towards the point where the wings can come off for repair…

Control cables disconnected and ailerons removed to the workshop at home for safe keeping:

Cables tidied up and strapped to the struts:

I’ve got loads of yellow tape in the locker for the RV; it’s coming in handy for the Cub now as well…

The control cables sometimes do manage to retaliate:

At least we’re doing it under cover and not in the Ardennes in the freezing cold of the Battle of the Bulge…

The freshly printed instructor rating finally got used in anger, here’s Oli my first ever student. He’s off to an integrated course next year with a conditional offer from BA…

…so in the future I am going to be able to say that my first ever student now flies for BA!

On a cold day, with another student, we just couldn’t get the aircraft started. Even before we climbed into the aircraft we had about 30 minutes of de-icing to do.

The battery was a little inefficient in the cold, the oil was all huddling together for warmth at the bottom of the sump, the inside of the canopy was starting to ice over from our breath and the engine stubbornly refused to start.

Eventually we overprimed and flooded the carb intake box. The next failed start must have had some flame blowback through the intake valve and like a dog, it went WOOF and we were on fire.

It became obvious quite quickly, a strange smell and people shouting “YOU’RE ON FIRE!” – those were the main clues…

We did the fire drill and jumped out. There was a residual flicker of flame from the carburettor intake filter element – it’s made of foam and impregnated with oil to trap dust and other bogies, so it burns quite nicely.

The last item on the fire drill in the checklist reads:

“Vacate aircraft, taking fire extinguisher with you”

…so naturally I had to go back into the cabin to get the extinguisher and only then were we able to put the fire out.

The extinguishers in aircraft are very effective; one quick squirt to test then another longer squirt to put the fire out. Almost 12,000 hours and that was the first time I had to use an extinguisher in anger. All those fire courses my previous employers put me through were well worth it!

So, yeh. We were on fire. Tried to burn down a Cessna. Tough old birds, we didn’t manage to complete the task…despite forgetting the extinguisher.

Happy New Year! Both of you…