Tinworm-wings: Sold one plane and bought another!

Sunday 22 May 2011

Sold one plane and bought another!

click image for a clearer view

Without ever advertising it....but for mooting the idea on here....I have sold my Dragonfly for what I originally paid for her, albeit that it is now worth rather more, as I have added a foot throttle, quick release prop boss...and now that the carb and pump and big end have been up-rated too. I took her down to her new owner, a long-time reader of this blog, and demonstrated her from his airfield and had a ball. It was rather a brief demo of just three circuits, as the wind was scarily rough, but I wanted him to know for sure that he was getting a sound machine.

It has been out of action for a few weeks because I had a problem with the old carb, but replacing it has solved the problem of it burning too much fuel; so much so that the pump could not keep it supplied and it cut out on me in flight, which was rather worrying. I brought my buyer up to speed on this and we both awaited news from Bailey's anxiously. So that test flight was exciting for us both.

There was a nasty cross wind on take-off, tight turns to avoid habitation etc...and very bumpy air around 400'.....I gained no more height because it is a very small circuit and there were lots of obstacles below....little opportunity to stretch the climb in a straight line - this was a test flight after all...and I was anxious about the need not to gain height over buildings (with the chance of a sudden loss of power) etc. I attempted a cross-strip take-off to get up into wind but ran out of strip and aborted....not nice!....and not at all pretty! Thankfully, Bailey's had done a good job and all went well when I took off straight down the strip, starboard wing slightly down..

It was great to be able to fly her before I let her go....so that I would be left with a great final impression and my buyer could start with a great one too.

Meanwhile, Neill was elsewhere in the country looking over a Quantum 582, which he says is a really great buy, very well maintained and with a superbly documented service history. I am completely delighted. I can't say more now, for fear of jinxing the sale, but I have put down a deposit and by the end of Half Term, she should be in my hangar.

Craig, Doug and Sam at Great Oakley are very pleased for me...all offering advice and help, and as well as now being able to fly with them, I have the assurance of Craig's in-depth knowledge of the Quantum and Doug's all-round wizardry with Rotax engines. So I never need worry about maintenance and problems; I know I will have all the help I need.

So, on a single day I sold one plane and bought another (and made a handsome profit too!)

What a day!

p.s. Rather gratified by Neill's impressed response when I said I had flown, in what was to all the country's fliers one hell of a windy day. "So, you manned up and went anyway! Just as well you had a great teacher!"

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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!