Tinworm-wings: Humbling news

Tuesday 9 March 2010

Humbling news

The news from Bailey Aviation is that "no fuel [was] pumping to the carburettor, due to dirt in the fuel pump and filters". That is very embarrassing news indeed, but it is good news for two reasons. Firstly it means that no expensive repair will be necessary, but more importantly it acts as a wake-up call for me to get very much more acquainted with my engine.

Microlighters do their own maintenance. It is one of the privileges of the sport (not being obliged to pay expensive licenced engineers to do it for us), but with that comes the responsibility to either do it properly ourselves or pay someone else to do it. I want to be a good all-rounder, so it is down to me to get to know my engine well and make sure such an embarrassingly simple fault does not get past me a second time.

Update
I have been worried. The suggestion made by Ben Ashman was that I can't have been filtering my fuel, or that I have too coarse a filter. In point of fact I bought my filter from Flylight and as a Mr Funnel it is supposed to be state of the art for the purpose. So if I am filtering, what hope do I have of stopping a recurrence of my engine stoppage?

I said something to this effect in an email to Steve Wilson and he wrote this bac (and as I think it might help others, I hope he won't mind me quoting him

Filtering fuel in the field needs care. Check the outlet tube of the funnel for gunk before you use it, it may have picked up something in your tool box. I run my finger around inside the tube, tap it on the outside of the fuel can and visually inspect it. You could store the funnel with a cork in it or make it its own condom with a finger from an old rubber glove.

The classic in paramotor circles is for grass etc to get into the tank as soon as the cap is off so be very careful to limit the tank open time. When my aircraft is parked I have the fuel line disconnected and the tank cap and pressure relief valve in place but loose to allow venting. I syphon my tank dry every time I leave it. The fuel is then stored in sealed containers so the volatile content is not lost. This sucks out any rubbish that might be lurking in the tank. A visual inspection, with a torch if necessary, is always worthwhile.

I think I am careful but as my funnel is kept in my toolbox and I haven't sealed the spout or vented my tank, there is hope that in following Steve's advice, I can be a much more careful refueller than I have been.

2 comments:

Unknown said...: Peter,

If you're interested in learning more about the Bailey fitted to your Dragonfly, try this Yahoo! group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bailey4stroke/

Intended mainly for Bailey paramotor owners, but an engine is an engine as far as I can see!

Jon. (Not a pilot, but loves the idea of the Dragonfly and would love to get into it at some point).; 9 March 2010 at 21:44
Unknown said...: Hi mate,

Glad to hear it's a simple problem. Do you filter your fuel with a Mr Funnell or equivalent filter each time you fill your fuel tank?

Jeff.; 10 March 2010 at 03:27

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Ground handling (how to store an aeroplane at home and get it to the airfield)

A trial flight in a Thruster, when I was 28, c.1991

I have started to learn to fly before...TWICE! First time round I had just graduated and got a job at an aerodrome in Cornwall, where I earned flying hours by fuelling microlights, giving hourly weather reports to the Met office etc. The weather was bad, so there was little flying to be had...and in the end I was paid with broken propellers and bits of crashed fuselage to hang on the wall. The boss was a great bloke called Ian Stokes, who had been a leading light in forming the BMAA and had manufactured Thrusters in the early days . In retirement he moved to The Gambia and became a publican and, shockingly, was murdered this year.

Flying Rogues

ten years on from my first experiences at Moorland Flying School (and now nearly ten years ago) the flying school was under new management and my girlfriend and I booked full courses. We both made good progress initially but never felt we were being moved on and had difficulty pinning the instructor down to signing our logbooks. When another instructor signed himself as P1, we got suspicious, contacted the CAA and were horrified to learn that our instructor did not have a current instructor rating, that we had not been insured and that none of our hours counted towards our licences. We were eventually refunded and the instructors were prosecuted by the CAA.

The very sympathetic CAA investigator spoke to the BMAA on our behalf and my hours have been allowed to count (at the discretion of the school). But in point of fact, I flew way over the minimum number of hours subsequently, so it is really quite academic in the end.

Around 2001 an instructor in Norfolk tried to convince me that if I bought his aeroplane he could teach me at a cut rate, as I'd then be using my own plane. Great idea, I thought, except that it turned out that the aircraft in question had failed a noise test and could not be used from the instructor's field. He later admitted that I would have to learn on his aeroplane at the normal rate. He resisted showing me the paperwork, kept avoiding me and eventually, when it was quite clear I wasn't going to buy without the paperwork, told me to F-off.

So far my experience has been that there are a lot of rogues in flying, which is one reason why I was so very impressed by the professional set-up at Sywell.

by air to Africa

My sister and I were lucky to fly many thousands of miles in the 1960s and '70s in many aircraft types, including BOAC VC-10s, Boeing 707s and even a Nigerian Airways Dakota, as our dad (and later our mum) had teaching posts in Kenya and Nigeria. Those were still the romantic days of flying, when passengers walked across tarmac and up steps, rather than walking down the tubes that have turned passenger flying into a mundane affair. (Mind you, aren't take-offs still incredibly exciting!?)

Back then air hostesses GAVE children the sorts of nick-nacks that their parents have to pay fortunes for from the airline catalogue these days; things like model aeroplanes, keyrings etc. We were also given sweets to help us cope with depressurisation. (And they were hostesses, so nobody give me a hard time)

Mum says that I cracked my first joke when I was small, on a flight out to Kenya, when I said, "Mummy, shouldn't there be a wing on this side of the plane too". Apparently I got her with that one.

At Kano airport I remember standing behind an engine and thinking how hot it still was....and then being told that the engine was cold. The heat was Kano. I got a headache and took several days to aclimatise.

The airport perri-ways at Kano were littered with aircraft that didn't make it, including a burnt-out Mig 15. The Nigerian Airforce flew them and my dad played squash with one of their pilots, Ben, at the Kano Club. I recall a Mig fly-past on my birthday. Was it arranged with Ben over a beer? Was it a pure coincidence?

At Entebbe airport (Uganda) I remember climbing down the steps on to the runway and being encircled by soldiers with machine guns, who then went through all our belongings and confiscated my cherished Swiss Army penknife, purchased on one of numerous European stop-overs. That was in the twitchy time after the Israeli hijacking ...and mum had to stifle my protests.

Before my first flight to Nairobi, as an infant, I was scared stiff. I didn't understand that I wouldn't have to sit astride the fuselage, as I did on my pedalcar! In a funny way, I not only overcame that fear but have come full circle; microlighting is just like sitting on that pedalcar......open to the elements - real flying!