The Westmorland Flyer

Wobbly prop?

2011-05-31T16:41:00.001+01:00

I suppose I'm getting itchy fingers. It's 15 months since I finished building JONL and I'm starting to think how I might get my hands dirty again making a few improvements.

One thought that recurs often is the idea of fitting a variable pitch propeller to my steed. This, it is alleged, would transform the aircraft, providing even shorter take off runs and anywhere between 5 and 20 knots of additional speed in the cruise, whilst simultaneously reducing fuel consumption. Quite a feat if all that can be achieved in one go!

The principle is simple enough: at slow speeds a fixed pitch propeller is set too coarse and as a result the engine cannot reach maximum revs and thus, maximum power. By having a finer pitch this problem is fixed and take off becomes a more efficient affair. Conversely, in the cruise the prop pitch needs to be much more coarse so the propeller takes a bigger slice of air per revolution at a given engine speed, resulting in higher air speed. The problem is that these requirements are mutually inconsistent, so a compromise is necessary with a fixed pitch propeller. And compromises aren't good in aviation.

Enter the in-flight variable pitch propeller. This can be adjusted for fine pitch during take off and coarse pitch in the cruise. The propeller and engine can therefore work together to provide the best combination of power and thrust for any given situation. The system is variously called variable pitch, constant speed or, more prosaically, wobbly prop. And I want one!

There are a couple of options that are approved for fitting to the Sportcruiser. One is electrically driven, with a pitch control motor in the propeller spinner, connected via slip rings to the pitch controller. The other variant is perhaps nicer. Here the propeller pitch is driven via hydraulics, with the control motor mounted somewhere convenient, such as the fire wall.

The electrical system is simpler and cheaper but it is also heavier and the weight is in the wrong place, right at the front of the aircraft, which is a nuisance for weight and balance considerations. The hydraulic system has fewer moving parts and much less weight at the nose of the aircraft but is the better part of twice the price.

It's a difficult decision and I'm not planning to rush into it but I am thinking about it quite hard. I reckon there is every chance that this will be a project for when the summer flying season is over.

Bagby

2011-05-31T16:09:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was the first decent day after quite a long run of wet and windy weather. My friend Mike and I had hoped to get up to the Glenforsa fly in last weekend but it was a washout and in the end we didn't event attempt it.

I'd promised to take one of our Air Cadet instructors flying and we decided that a trip to Bagby, near RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire would be a pleasant excursion. The weather on the way out was OK but there was still some low cloud scudding around, so I decided to route via the Hexham gap, towards Newcastle, rather than try to get up to 3500ft VMC to clear the high Pennines on the direct route.

Although all the MATZs were closed (the RAF doesn't do weekends and does bank holidays even less), nearby Topcliffe was active with motor gliding so we had to give that a wide berth, resulting in a rather circuitous approach to Bagby from the north. In all the faffing around I carelessly managed to completely mislay Bagby airfield and ended up more or less overhead before I'd realised what was going on! No problem - a quick reposition to downwind right for 06 and a minute later we were on the ground.

What a thoroughly delightful airfield! Within a few minutes of landing JONL had gathered a group of enthusiastic onlookers and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with them for a good hour. There is a friendly little clubhouse where you can get coffee and snacks. Much to my surprise I found it impossible to pay a landing fee, even the offer of a contribution to the grass cutting fund was politely declined.

All too soon it was time to start heading back to Carlisle. In the meantime the cloud base had lifted considerably so we routed directly back home, once again giving Topcliffe a wide berth after departure. Although the return journey was shorter, it was slightly into wind and as a result the outbound and return journeys took exactly the same time: 65 minutes, chock to chock.

I'm very taken by Bagby International. It's one of several airfields that I've visited on the east side of the Pennines and all have been remarkably friendly, delightful places to visit. A return trip will have to be scheduled!

Just bimbling around

2011-05-07T14:00:00.001+01:00

I find that I've been somewhat remiss in that I've not updated this Blog for a couple of months! It's not been the best of times for flying to be honest but I have managed a dozen or so local bimbles and the odd land-away.

In April I dropped into Kirkbride as part of the annual flight test for JONL. It was nice to catch up with the gang there after a couple of months of being based at Carlisle.

Early in May I flew to Andreas on the Isle of Man to visit a radio amateur friend. Andreas is on the northern tip of the island and is very convenient for my friend's home. It's also a considerably lower cost option than flying into Ronaldsway, with its mandatory handling and relatively expensive landing fees.

The journey over was a real pleasure, with excellent visibility and virtually no cloud. This enabled me to get up to 5000ft for the water crossing from St Bees Head , which is always comforting in case the engine should suddenly realise it's over water and decide to resign its commission. With a 20:1 glide ratio, I reckon that at 5000ft I was always within glide range of one or other coast, although quite what I would do if I had to return to the 300ft high cliff edge of St Bees Head is not entirely obvious.

A rather soggy Andreas airfield

The return journey was not so pleasant. An unexpectedly vigorous trough produced quite heavy and un-forecast rain on the day of my departure. In the end I decided to leave early as that would let me fly away from the bad weather rather than into it. The combination of rain, low cloud and sea made for one of those odd occasions where the flying was definitely VFR, yet there was no horizon whatsoever. Not for the first time I was glad that I have an IMC rating and flew the water crossing at 2500ft, just below the clouds entirely on instruments.

Once I reached St Bees Head it all became a lot easier. Firstly there was land to see and that created a horizon to fly by. But I was also heading out of the weather and by the time I got back to Carlisle it was dry with high cloud and all the 9's visibility. The excitement wasn't entirely over though, for the north/south runway was closed for the upcoming Radio One Big Weekend and I was obliged to land with a fairly hefty crosswind on 07. Not the prettiest of landings but hey! I could still use the aircraft afterwards, so it was, by the usual definition, an excellent landing!

All the other flights have just been local bimbles so I won't bother you with further waffle on those.

My first annual

2011-05-05T14:00:00.001+01:00

G-JONL is a year old!

Golly, that came round quickly. It seems only yesterday that I was finishing off the build and wondering whether it would actually fly. Now, with some 70 hours in the logbooks it was time to see whether it would be allowed to continue to fly.

Tom, my LAA inspector was, of course, his usual helpful self.A fairly rigorous inspection of flying surfaces, controls, engine and avionics followed but it didn't take Tom long to pronounce JONL fit and well. The necessary paperwork took nearly as long to complete, over a coffee in the airport cafe, naturally.

Next was the flight test. As I now have plenty of hours on the Sportcruiser there was no problem with me flying this myself but an observer was needed to take notes. Step forward Don, a radio amateur friend, with whom I had been on a weekend of boozing interspersed with some radio convention stuff. As he used to fly gliders he wouldn't be fazed by stalls and VNE dives, so off we went.

To be honest the flight test was a complete non-event. The aircraft behaved impeccably and the flight results were almost identical to those that we had recorded on the original flight tests a year earlier. I'm still amazed just how slow you can fly a Sportcruiser before it is anywhere near the stall, especially with full flap!

As part of the flight tests we had to do an aborted landing so we popped over to Kirkbride and did it there. After the baulked landing we did a proper landing and partook of a quick coffee in Mike's caravan before heading back to Carlisle, job done.

I must say, the LAA excelled themselves. The new permit to fly was back with me in well under a week, making it possible for me to do the trip to the Isle of Man a few days later (see separate report).

Glenswinton and some all time firsts

2011-03-16T13:59:00.003Z

Glenswinton is new private strip that has recently been completed and I was invited by its owner to fly in whenever I would like to. It's only about 35 minutes flying time from Carlisle and the weather on Monday was brilliant, so I decided to give it a go.

The strip nestles into the woodlands around Castle Douglas. It is 350m long orientated 03/21, with a pronounced up slope from the 03 threshold and some rather solid trees at the 21 end. Landing is therefore always on 03 and take off is from 21, regardless of what the wind might think. The runway is rolled gravel, which was a new experience for me.

Peter, the owner, helpfully provides 2 mile and 0.5 mile GPS coordinates to 03 and that is just as well: I am sure I would not have found the strip without them. The approach is over undulating ground, with plenty of higher ground around to keep the pilot on his toes.

My first approach was too high. By the time I saw the runway I was about 100ft above it and with no way to get down in time but at least I had found the strip! The go-around required full power and a fairly steep climbing turn due to high ground all around but it wasn't really any problem, other than the GPS continually bleating with terrain warnings.

Proof that I was there!

I returned to the 2 mile final coordinates and made my second approach. This time I was low enough to make it in but definitely in amongst the undulating terrain, making a straight-in approach more or less impossible. No big issue though and a half way decent landing followed, albeit a bit on the firm side due, I suspect, to the rising land.

The 21 end is "interesting"

After a cup of coffee kindly provided by Peter's staff, I was on my way back to Carlisle again. The take off was uneventful but a little weird, again due to the sloping terrain. It made it very hard to determine how much runway I needed to get airborne but I suspect it was only about half of the available length.

In an e-mail exchange, afterwards, Peter said:


Looking NE from half way along the runway

...yes, you are definitely our first visitor and JONL is the first low-wing and first G-registered aeroplane to land. You are also the first to have successfully executed a missed approach - comforting to know it can be done!

The view from the 03 threshold

He didn't elaborate on whether there had been any unsuccessful missed approaches but I am content that I didn't add that as another first!

Peter has a nice little strip in Glenswinton but it's not for novices! I look forward to flying in there again some time.

Update, 17-Mar: Peter has uploaded a video of his landing at Glenswinton on YouTube.

A Lake District Odyssey

2011-03-08T23:43:00.005Z

I help out as a Civilian Instructor at Penrith Air Training Corps and from time to time take others of the leadership team flying. For some time I had been trying to get David, our Padre, flying but he's a busy fellow and we didn't manage to find a suitable date until last week.

When we did finally get flying the results were stunning. Early morning mist rose to a broken low cloud, with the summits of the Lake District peaking out above. We spent a magnificent hour flying over the mountains. Words aren't really sufficient to convey the splendid vista, so I'll let the excellent pictures taken by David tell the story.

Moving to Carlisle

2011-03-02T23:26:00.008Z

For a while I have been considering the possibility of moving G-JONL to Carlisle. There's nothing wrong with Kirkbride as such but as I spend so much time at Carlisle that it makes sense to be based there. The journey to EGNC is slightly shorter and quite a lot easier too.

I made the move on 1st March 2011 and G-JONL is now comfortably ensconced in a nice new hangar with a number of other similar size aircraft. It's not necessary to move any other aircraft to extract my Sportcruiser from the hangar and one is straight out onto the main apron, where refuelling and preflight checks can be completed.

Another advantage of Carlisle is that it has a north/south runway in addition to the main east/west runway, so there will be fewer occasions when hairy crosswind landings will be called for! I've already made one trip that would probably not have been possible from Kirkbride due to strong crosswinds. I'm already finding that being at Carlisle means that I can get more flying in.

Naturally I was sad to leave Kirkbride, having finished the building of G-JONL there and then flown from there for nearly a year. But I think it's the right decision now that I am flying her regularly and want to maximise availability during the coming flying season.

Beverley

2011-01-31T22:51:00.002Z

Beverley is one of the many small airfields across on the east side of the Pennines. The lie of the land is rather more conducive to airfields, being largely flat and there's certainly plenty to choose from.

January 29th was a pleasant day for a flight and I decided it was high time that I headed off east and explored a new airfield. Originally I thought I might go to Eddsfield, which is a few miles in land from Bridlington and is highly recommended. Unfortunately I couldn't get an answer when I phoned for PPR. I do know that they have had problems with the heavy snow and damage to hangars, so I had to assume that the airfield was closed.

Just down the road is Beverley, home of the Hull Aero Club, being just a few miles north of Hull. I knew little about the airfield but when I called for PPR it seemed friendly enough and so off I went.

With excellent visibility and little cloud, I was able to fly at FL55 on the way there, on pretty well a direct track from Kirkbride, via the RAF Leeming overhead and on to land at Beverley after a flight lasting 75 minutes.

What a delightful airfield! The people are really friendly and there is a fine selection of light aircraft, from the Tipsy Nipper to modern LSAs. I was, however, the only Sportcruiser there that day. The grass runway tends to get a big boggy and everyone is enjoined to use the north side of the runway and avoid taxying over the boggy bits. There was plenty going on, both in the air and in the busy club house.

After a quick cuppa and a very reasonably priced cheeseburger, it was time to head home to be ahead of darkness. The return flight was uneventful but with a little more cloud, which, at FL45 I was well above, resulting in some excellent views of the distant Lake District mountains as I cleared the Pennines.

Beverley is a wonderful airfield to visit and I will definitely make another trip there during the summer for a longer stop.

First flight of 2011

2011-01-01T18:49:00.000Z

After a poor end to 2010, I managed a unique achievement today - a flight on the first day of a new year.

Although the weather wasn't particularly promising, the forecast was for it to improve during the day and the cloud, although completely overcast, was quite high. I decided to drive to the airport and see what transpired.

In fact it wasn't a bad day at all at Kirkbride. Rather chilly at about 1°C and the easterly winds are back again but at least the cloud base was sufficient. It was just a local bimble for about an hour, around Carlisle, Locherbie, Dumfries and Castle Douglas but it was enough to blow the cobwebs off after almost a month without committing aviation.

Let us hope that the early start is a good omen for the rest of the year!

All in all an interesting year

2010-12-31T16:07:00.000Z

Well, here we are at the end of 2010 and it's been an interesting and eventful year one way and another. Of course getting G-JONL flying was the pinnacle of my flying achievements to date and I am sure it's a period in my life that I shall look back on with satisfaction in years to come.

In the end the weather put paid to flying for pretty well all of December, with just one solitary flight of an hour at the beginning of the month. Nevertheless, I clocked up 61 hours of P1 time during 2010, 45 hours of which were in G-JONL.

Hopefully 2011 will be the year I can extend my flying in G-JONL and start visiting some of the places that the short field performance of the Sportcruiser makes possible. In particular, I'd like to return to the Orkney Islands and visit all those tiny 500m strips on the many smaller Orkadian islands. I'm also overdue a trip down south, once the weather starts improving.

So I'm looking forward to 2011 and some nice flying weather. I'd like to wish all my readers a Happy New Year and, for those of you that fly, blue skies and good landings.

Season's greetings

2010-12-25T00:00:00.007Z

A merry Christmas

and a

happy new year

Snow

2010-12-03T17:04:00.001Z

Grounded! We've got about 8" of snow and the road past my house is an ice rink. Sometimes living on top of a hill, on a road that is never gritted, is a real bummer.

Even if I could get out (and more importantly, back up the hill) the airfield is under a similar amount of snow, so flying's orf for the time being. Sadly I don't see any end to the cold weather for a while.

Blackpool

2010-11-18T17:00:00.006Z

A friend and I had a meeting to go to in Blackpool so although it's probably no quicker to fly, by the time the 'plane's been taken out of the hangar, fuelled and pre-flighted, we nonetheless decided that it would be fun to do so.

I've not been into Blackpool since my training days, although I've flown past it on numerous occasions. It had gained a bit of a reputation for being rather unfriendly and expensive for GA and, having no reason to go there other than to get it in the logbook, there seemed little point in doing so.

Now equipped with a reason to go there I set about finding out whether the rumours were still true. Well they're not! Blackpool is once again a GA friendly airport, with a separate apron and a very helpful flight briefing office dedicated to GA. There's no longer any need to go through the main terminal or mix with the big jets and their contents. The landing fee is reasonable for an airfield with just about every toy you could need, including ILS, radar and full ATC.

I don't need to go to Blackpool very often but I must say I was impressed with the new arrangements and will certainly fly there in future when the opportunity arises. Credit where credit is due - well done, Blackpool!

Flying Instructor

2010-11-11T16:20:00.003Z

Once upon a time there was a flying instructor who, against all the odds, taught me to fly. The rest, as they say, is history: he went on to become a First Officer and is now flying 737s around the Gulf whilst I went on to build G-JONL.

Brian was back in the UK for a few days in November so it seemed like a good idea to get together for a meal and to catch up on each other's news. A thoroughly enjoyable evening was had at one of the excellent country pubs near to Carlisle Airport.

The following day was clear, cold and bright. Excellent weather for a bit of proper flying, so Brian and I assembled at Kirkbride in the late morning, intent on doing just that. Brian kindly permitted me to do the take off but by the time we were climbing through 1000ft it was clear that he was itching to take control. I didn't do any more flying that day!

We headed out over the Solway and on to Dumfries before setting course for Locherbie. This is Brian's old stomping ground and he was in his element. Soon we were making steep turns and all the other things that he doesn't get to do in a 737 with self loading freight! After a bit of that we headed off to Carlisle Airport for a spot of lunch, meeting up with several of his old buddies in the café. Considering that Brian had never flown JONL before he made an excellent landing (I have to say that, other wise he might hit me!).

All too soon it was time to head back to Kirkbride - a short 10 minute direct flight. It was a pleasure to be flying with Brian again and to discover that he hasn't lost his knack of flying little fun aeroplanes.

Photo credits: Brian Peacock

Glassonby airfield

2010-11-01T22:00:00.001Z

Glassonby is a small airfield to the north east of Penrith. It has two grass runways, 18/36 (450m) & 05/23 (350m) and is perched on top of a hill at 600ft ASL, in the foothills of the Pennines.

It was a pretty decent day today and the short trip from Kirkbride to Glassonby fitted in perfectly with the relatively short amount of time I had available to commit aviation. A freshening southerly wind meant that 18 was definitely the into wind runway, giving me 450m to play with - ample for the Sportcruiser.

Glassonby is quite hard to find! Even though I had the coordinates in my GPS, I didn't see the runway until I was almost on top of it. In the event, the runway was occupied... by a few hundred sheep... so a low approach and go around was called for. To my amazement all the sheep promptly vacated the runway! Well trained sheep indeed.

The second approach didn't work out either. I rather carelessly lost the airfield (again) and by the time I discovered where the runway was hiding it was too close to make a decent attempt at it. Go around number two.

This is ridiculous! I can't remember the last time I took three goes to make a landing. Er... actually I can - it was a windy day at Glenforsa a few years back. Anyway, whatever, the third approach was spot on and a decent landing followed, using less than half the runway length.

What a delightful airfield! The runways are in good nick, albeit a bit mucky due to aforementioned sheep. The views are superb and there is a lovely log cabin, where tea and coffee are freely available. There is no set landing fee - the book says that donations are welcome and I was more than happy to oblige.

Robin, the farmer who owns the airfield, flies a microlight from the field. He came up to meet me and showed me around the hangar. Sadly it's rather full of aircraft but he has promised me that he'll let me know as soon as a spot becomes available. I think I could very happily base myself at Glassonby!

With deteriorating weather it was time to head back to Kirkbride and a slightly tricky cross wind landing on runway 28, with a 10-12kt southerly. I shall certainly visit Glassonby again.

Visit to Cark

2010-10-26T13:46:00.002+01:00

Cark is a small airfield on the southern edge of the Lake District, about 40 minutes flying time from Kirkbride. It has a 500m tarmac runway and is more usually associated with parachuting activities especially at weekends.

Yesterday was such a lovely day it seemed a shame not to fly somewhere, so Mike (a local pilot who has helped me with maintaining JONL) and I decided we would head off to Cark. It was to be the first time that I had landed there and only my second visit.

We decided to route around the coast, past Sellafield and close to Barrow in Furness before turning east along the northern coast of Morecambe Bay. With a light south westerly, progress was good and the landing on runway 24 was straightforward enough. Although there was no parachuting in progress, there was someone at the parachuting centre to welcome us, provide a quick cuppa and relieve us of £15 landing fee, which we thought was a bit steep for a strip with no facilities, not even A/G! I shall never again complain about the fees at full service airports such as Carlisle!

We took a look at the enormous PAC 750 parachute jump aeroplane and marvelled that such a large craft could take off and land on a 500m runway. I guess keeping that flying is an expensive proposition and perhaps explains the disproportionate landing fee.

The return flight was a more speedy affair, more or less direct, over the Lake District mountains in just 35 minutes, with a gentle tailwind.

Keeping the elements at bay

2010-10-01T17:00:00.001+01:00

Although JONL will usually be hangared, there will inevitably be occasions when I'm away from base and she has to live outside for a night or two. Even in the hangar it is noticeable that small birds roost in the roof, with inevitable consequences down below. Some covers were clearly called for.

Full coverage for the aircraft is both expensive and time consuming to put on, so I decided to go for a cockpit/engine cowling cover and half wing covers, which extend far enough to cover the wing lockers I also have some wing tip protectors made, in an attempt to reduce the risk of "hangar rash". Finally, I had two waterproof locker bags made, which fit exactly into the wing lockers and are amply large enough for use as a weekend bag.

Deciding on the colour was a bit tricky. On one hand it would be nice to have covers matching the colour scheme of the aircraft but I was concerned that the dark red colour might give rise to excessive heating. In the end I reasoned that the time when one mostly uses covers is during inclement weather, when solar heating is not really an issue.

I had the covers made by Vertigo covers and they've done a good job. All the covers fit into a fairly small stuff bag and the all up weight is just a couple of kg, so it is entirely practical to take the covers on land aways.

Post updated and published 01-Oct-2010

It's been a while...

2010-09-19T16:36:00.000+01:00

... since I updated this Blog and I have been gently taken to task for not regaling my eager readership with any anecdotes or stories of daring do. It's nice to know there's still a few of you out there!

The summer has been a period of reasonably intense flying, with a number of trips away, notably to Glenforsa on the Island of Mull. I shall write some more about the two trips to my favourite Scottish airfield very soon.

G-JONL has behaved perfectly and now has 40 hours or so on the clock. The first service was done without drama at 25 hours. I've got very used to flying her and am enjoying the opportunity to do so while the weather remains, for the most part, conducive.

I'm still based at Kirkbride and as far as I can see it is unlikely that I will move from there for a variety of reasons, not least that I have several good friends there and it is a thoroughly friendly place. I have a small list of things that I'd like to sort out on G-JONL, most of which are cosmetic and can wait until the "flying season" draws to a close.

It's pleasing to be able to report that G-JONL has lived up to expectations and is proving to be a fun aircraft to fly. Obviously it's not as stable in the air as, say, the Warrior but it's still a very capable touring aircraft. It's a lot cheaper to run too!

Glenforsa 2

2010-09-17T17:36:00.075+01:00

My friend and occasional flying companion Mike has flown with me to Glenforsa on several occasions, usually for the annual fly in. He was less than impressed to discover that I had flown up there on my own and demanded a replay, with him present!

So it was, then, that we boarded G-JONL at Kirkbride on a rather windy but otherwise nice clear day, en route to Glenforsa. the stiff northerly wind made for slow progress on the way to Mull, with ground speeds often down in the 45kt to 55kt range, so it took a massive 2h 40m to fly there, which I believe is the longest I have ever taken. It was quite turbulent too, especially around the high mountains of Arran. Although the Sportcruiser handled the bumps well there is no doubt that it is not as stable in these conditions as, say, a PA28.

Eventually we arrived, in somewhat anxious anticipation of the stonking crosswind landing. As we approached for a straight in from the east I lined up with the runway as best I could. Lined up is something of a misnomer. In order to track the extended centre line of the runway, the nose was a good 30° to the north... land on Mull by pointing the nose at Skye!

This amount of crosswind is a considerable challenge for any aircraft and the Sportcruiser doesn't have a particularly impressive demonstrated maximum crosswind performance so I'd decided that I was more than willing to throw away the landing and if necessary divert to Oban, which has a north/south runway. In the event though the rudder offered sufficient authority to kick the nose straight just before touchdown and it was, indeed, one of my better landings!

Of course, as the aircraft slowed, so rudder authority reduced and before long the aircraft was trying to weathercock into the wind. A little judicious differential braking soon fixed that tendency and we rolled to a gentle halt having used only about 300m of the runway. David Howitt, the airfield manager greeted us as always and announced that I definitely had nothing to worry about vis a vis the crosswind performance of the Sportcruiser!

As we were staying the night we could imbibe some of the local brew so it was not long before Michael and I were supping the local ale in the Glenforsa Hotel, swapping our thoughts on the flight. Certainly I felt that it had demonstrated that the Sportcruiser is a very capable aircraft that can hold its own in difficult flying conditions.. albeit it's perhaps not something that I'd want to be doing every day! After a few more sherbets even these doubts seemed less important.

During the late afternoon it rained cats and dogs but JONL was securely tied down and nice and warm under her new red coat, so we didn't feel so bad about carrying on sampling the Glenforsa Hotel's multifarious wares, followed by a jolly good meal.

The following day was better, so we rented a car from David Howitt and headed of for the principality of Tobermoray, where we were once again beguiled by the local produce, this time a bottle each of fine single malt from the Mull distillery. Not for immediate quaffing however, these bottles were destined for export!

All too soon it was time to return to Carlisle and with the northerly still blowing a good hooley, we were back to Kirkbride in what seemed like no time flat, just 1hr 20m, which is exactly half the time it took us to get to Mull. All in all an excellent sortie.

Post updated and published 26-Oct-2010

Glenforsa 1

2010-08-30T17:36:00.083+01:00

The view to the West

Glenforsa has long been one of my favourite flying destinations, and with good reason. It is under two hours flying time (in nil wind conditions) from the Carlisle area and the route takes in some stunning Scottish scenery. Glenforsa's airfield has a beautifully manicured 800m grass strip and is situated right on the coast, overlooking the Sound of Mull, with excellent views of distant hills and the Sound itself. Finally, and very satisfyingly, there is a hotel alongside the airfield, a mere 50 years of so from the airfield boundary.

The weather on the 30th of August was just too good to ignore and soon I was on my way to Kirkbride, having loaded up with fuel at the local garage. With just a light northerly wind, the outbound leg took 1hr 55m, routing at 5000ft via Turnberry, Arran, Lochgilphead and the BRUCE intersection. Arriving at Glenforsa the wind dropped to almost nothing, making a straight in approach to runway 25 completely uneventful.

Looking East towards the mainland

David Howitt, the airfield manager exuded his usual bonhomie, announcing that I was only the third Sportcruiser to have visited Glenforsa International. One of these days I shall be the first Sportcruiser to visit an airfield... there has to be one somewhere!

After a quick lunch in the Glenforsa Hotel I went for a short walk up the Glen that gives Glenforsa its name. It is a beautiful, if rather flat walk into the island, eventually reaching the foothills of some quite large mountains. Unfortunately I didn't have time to walk that far on this occasion. On my return, I noticed a sign for a bed and breakfast establishment just off the airfield and made a note of the name, Ty an Solas, for future reference.

JONL had a good view to the North

All too soon it was time to start heading home, as being a Monday, it was an Air Cadet meeting night. The return flight was equally delightful, with a gentle tailwind, allowing a return journey time to Kirkbride of 1hr 45m.

An altogether superb day out. Glenforsa keeps its prime slot as my favourite Scottish airfield.

Post updated and published 04-Oct-2010

First service

2010-08-28T16:27:00.001+01:00

The Rotax 912ULS engine fitted to JONL is a modern, reliable engine and requires far less maintenance than traditional avgas burning piston aero engines. Provided one can routinely use standard high octane petrol then not only is the fuel cheaper but it is also much less damaging to the engine.

Even running on petrol (otherwise known as mogas to distinguish it from avgas) an initial service at 25 hours is a good idea, so I decided that it should be done and, of course, being a Permit to Fly aircraft I did it myself!

Essentially, this service involves draining the engine oil, replacing the oil filter, replacing the eight spark plugs (two per cylinder) and refilling the engine with fresh oil. At the same time the opportunity was taken to check the security of all parts of the engine. Hose clips, in particular have a tendency to loosen over time and need a little tightening, particularly in the first few months of operation. Finally, a known weak spot is the exhaust system, so this was carefully inspected and the joints re lubricated with Copaslip to help prevent seizing, followed, potentially, by cracks appearing around the joints.

These are messy jobs but none are difficult and the whole programme was completed in about three hours. Total cost was around £50, which is a bit different from the bills I used to get for routine servicing of my old C of A Warrior!

Post updated and published 01-Oct-2010

Happy birthday to me!

2010-08-15T23:30:00.014+01:00

It's not every day that one makes it to the grand old age of sixty (thankfully!), so it was definitely time to have a party.

As it happened the weather was brilliant and the outdoor barbecue was a huge success. My Mother made me a birthday cake with a picture of G-JONL on top.

How do they do that? It seemed a shame to cut it and eat it!

Post updated and published 20-Oct-2010

Castle Kennedy

2010-06-19T23:16:00.001+01:00

The day after the Air Cadets' visit to Bedlands Gate, I flew from there on to Castle Kennedy, located close to Stranraer in the Mull of Galloway. Lord Stair, on whose land Castle Kennedy is situated is an aviation aficionado and airfield is a delight to fly into. Bedlands Gate is on land owned by Lord Lonsdale, so I had the somewhat unusual pleasure of flying from one Lord's estate to another!

The weather was brilliant and I was joined in the flyin by friends in various aircraft from Carlisle airport and a flotilla of girocopters from Kirkbride. Aircraft from Ireland, from as far south as Manchester and from all over Scotland made for a thoroughly enjoyable day's flying.

Castle Kennedy is one of the few relatively local airfields that I had never flown into before. I shall certainly be visiting again soon.

Post updated and published 02-Oct-2010

Air cadets

2010-06-18T22:08:00.001+01:00

One of my spare time activities is instructing the Penrith Squadron Air Cadets in electronics and aviation related subjects. As might be expected there is quite a lot of interest in G-JONL amongst the cadets and so it was only natural that I should let them have a look around.

Rather than have the entire squadron travelling up to Kirkbride, it was agreed that I would fly into Bedlands Gate, which is just a few miles south of Penrith. Fortunately it was a nice evening and all the youngsters were able to have a good look around, sit inside it and generally find out more about how a small aircraft is built.

JONL stayed at Bedlands Gate overnight, as it is only a couple of miles away from my home. A friend gave me a lift back home that evening and the following morning I hiked back to the airfield and flew directly to Castle Kennedy... on which trip, more anon.

Photo credit: Jim Hardman

Post updated and published 01-Oct-2010

A visit to Bedlands Gate

2010-06-16T14:04:00.001+01:00

Even though I am unlikely to get hangarage space at Bedlands Gate, it is the nearest airstrip to home and as such it ought to be flown into.

The strip isn't especially difficult but it does require some care, as the approaches are not entirely clear and the runways are quite short and bounded by dry stone walls. I decided that I ought to visit by car first and walk the runways to better understand what I would be encountering on the fly-in.

Bedlands Gate has three runways, oriented 13/31, 15/33 and 17/35. 15/33 is the longest at about 400m, plus an 80m extension over rather rough ground at the north west end. The approach to 33 is a little tricky, as there are buildings and a road crossing close to the threshold. The approach to 15 is similarly awkward, with falling ground to the threshold. So landing at Bedlands Gate needs a bit of thinking about.

Firstly, I walked each runway in turn, noting the approach characteristics and runway surfaces as I went. Final approach to 33 requires a bit of a dive for the ground after clearing the obstacles on short final and this means that it's quite difficult to use the first 50m or so or runway. At about 150m there is a definite hump, which has the ability to launch one skyward again if still travelling at flying speed. Other than that there is nothing much to worry about!

My survey completed, I drove up to Kirkbride (45 minutes), fuelled JONL and took off for the short (20 minutes!) trip back to Bedlands Gate. With runway 33 in use, I decided to give the buildings on short final a wide vertical berth and also kept a little fast, with the realisation that the first approach may result in a go-around. In the event, I touched down just before the aforementioned hump, which promptly sent me a few feet skywards again but by now my speed had decayed enough to make a good landing ahead, stopping well before the extension section.

The return trip, 45 minutes later was uneventful save to say that it was interesting doing a performance take off on grass and noting that I was airborne less than half way along the runway (yep, that hump again!), confirming that the Sportcruiser is, indeed, a pretty good short stripping aircraft.

It was good to get my local strip in the log!

Which airfield?

2010-06-14T10:06:00.004+01:00

Cumbria is a lumpy place, containing, as it does, the vast majority of England's highest mountains and large areas of rolling country, the result of extensive glaciation. As a consequence there are relatively few places where it is possible to build an airstrip, even one of the modest dimensions required by a Sportcruiser.

During the build and test flying stage, it made sense to be at an airfield with a decent length runway and that meant either Carlisle or Kirkbride, both 37 miles or so away from my home. Carlisle doesn't really cater for kit builders and hangarage is scarce and expensive, so I have been based at Kirkbride since last October.

There are, however nearer strips with an entirely adequate 400m or so of grass.

Bedlands Gate is a mere 2 miles away from home and offers three runways of between 250m and 450m. The photograph shows the main runway, 33/13. Bedlands Gate is a high elevation strip at 1000ft AMSL, with lovely views over the Eden Valley and beyond. Unfortunately it has very limited hangarage space and there is no way, for now at least, of getting G-JONL under cover there. Whilst that may be acceptable during the summer, the winter in such an exposed location would be altogether unacceptable. Sadly it seems unlikely that space will become available any time soon.

Glassonby is a little further away, the other side of Penrith, but it is still a lot closer than Kirkbride. 450m and 350m runways are very adequate and it is a somewhat more sheltered spot. But once again there is no hangarage space, although the prospect of availability some time in the next few months does seem better. I'm on the waiting list.

So it looks like I will be staying at Kirkbride and putting up with a 90 minute/70+ mile round trip each time I want to go flying. Disappointing, but manageable.

LAA Project News

2010-06-11T23:13:00.005+01:00

A few weeks ago I was pleased to be asked to provide an article for the LAA Project News section of the Association's monthly magazine, LIGHT AVIATION. I penned a few words and sent off a few photographs, never expecting that much if any would be published.

Imagine my surprise and delight at seeing the complete article published in the June magazine!

Quo vadis?

2010-06-09T22:47:00.002+01:00

G-JONL is completed and flying. Of course work is never done on any aeroplane and JONL will surely be no exception but the fact remains that this was intended to be a build Blog and, in essence, all the building is done.

So I need to work out what to do with this, my first ever proper Blog. I could stop now, on the basis that its job is done, or I could continue with the Blog and discuss my experiences, the happy times, and the vicissitudes, daring aerial exploits and hangar work on an ongoing basis.

My inclination is to keep the Blog going but I expect that it will be rather less frequently updated, if for no other reason than that there will be less to say. I know I have quite a lot of followers, most of whom are silent for most of the time, but I would be interested to know what you think.

Spreading my wings

2010-06-09T22:38:00.001+01:00

I've been somewhat remiss in that I haven't updated this Blog much since I started flying G-JONL. Perhaps that is understandable - this was always intended to be a build Blog and now the building stage is completed there is much less to say on that score.

Anyway, I've certainly not been idle. So far I have just under twelve hours of solo flying under my belt in JONL and I've been gradually spreading my wings to further afield places in the process. The aircraft has now done a total of 17 trouble-free hours of flying and it won't be very long before the initial 25 hour engine service is due.

Last week I went to visit my old flying pal Mike, who has recently moved down to Shropshire. His nearest airfield is Sleap, which is near to Shrewsbury and it was about a 90 minute flight each way - the longest so far. It was a lovely day, so I elected to route directly over the Lake District at 4500ft, intending to then transit through Liverpool's controlled airspace via the Liverpool Airport overhead, then directly on to Sleap.

In the end, I was given the more usual (but not quite so convenient) routing via the LPL NDB, which involved heading a few miles further east. It's slightly strange that Liverpool ATC prefers that routing, for it take you a few miles to the east of the airfield, at quite low level, right through the approach/climb out path. Anyway, that's what I got, so that's what I flew.

At the airport I met Mike, who took the pictures you see here (thanks Mike!). After some lunch went for a short bimble around the locality, out to Oswestry and other points west before returning to Sleap. During lunch, what appeared to be another Sportcruiser, EI-MIR landed and parked next to JONL. Curious, we wandered over to discover that it was not in fact a Sportcruiser but a Roko Aero NG4 - also a Czech aircraft and clearly with a similar pedigree. Later I met her owner and we had a good chat about the two aircraft. The Roko certainly looks like a very nice aircraft.

Eventually it was time to return to Kirkbride and this time I was unable to get any transit at all through Liverpool's airspace due to traffic loading and had to route via Wallasey Head. I think that is the first time I have ever been refused a transit through Liverpool's controlled airspace. Wallasey is pleasant enough though and it gave me an excuse to route up the coast, which is always enjoyable.

So by degrees I am extending my range and before long it will be time to head off to some Scottish islands and perhaps even down south. Not now though - the weather is appalling... winter has temporarily reasserted itself.

Altogether too much fun!

2010-05-29T10:17:00.001+01:00

I've been gently taken to task for not updating the Blog for a while. Yep, you've guessed it, I've been having altogether too much fun (if such a thing is possible) flying my new toy.

The day after the permit arrived I did my "first solo" with about half a dozen circuits to get the hang of things. As always happens, the first landing was an absolute greaser and things progressively deteriorated from there on! I reckon I've nailed things now though. Every aircraft is different and it was simply a case of getting used to the handling, how the flaps behave, optimum speeds and so on.

Since then I've been gradually widening my range of flying. On 23rd May I flew across to Fishburn for the first proper land away and, coincidentally, my first visit to that airfield. I've also flown into my old airfield, Carlisle. Gradually I'm building confidence in the aircraft and my ability to fly her. Before long I think a trip to the Scottish Islands will be called for! I've flown around six hours since the permit arrived.

It's pleasing that there are no technical problems with JONL. There are a few minor things to sort out - there is a small amount of aileron trim required for straight and level that needs to be balanced out and I want to try a slightly coarser propeller blade pitch to see if I can improve the cruise speed a little, without upsetting the short field take off performance.

All these things can wait. For now I'm just having fun!

Let's go fly!

2010-05-18T19:56:00.000+01:00

The Permit to Fly has arrived and I have it in my sticky mitts. Rather bad timing, as I have to work tomorrow but I have this feeling that I shall be airborne by tomorrow evening.

Yeehaw!

Permit issued!

2010-05-14T08:46:00.000+01:00

BREAKING NEWS

The CAA has issued the Permit to Fly. All I have to do now is wait to get the piece of paper in my grubby hands. Should be flying next week with a bit of luck.

Jerry cans

2010-05-13T23:32:00.000+01:00

The Sportcruiser works best on Mogas (petrol) although it can run on Avgas if necessary. As Avgas is much more expensive and also requires a more frequent engine maintenance regime, Mogas is far preferred when possible.

The problem is that very few airfields pump Mogas. This is something that is probably going to have to change in the not too far distant future but in the meantime, I have a problem to resolve.

The favoured solution is numerous Jerry cans. I've decided to get four, giving a total of 80 litres. Whilst this does not completely fill the Sportcruiser, which has a capacity of 114 litres, 80 litres is sufficient for over five hours of flying, so it will usually be more than enough.

Jerry cans are a bit awkward to transport and tend to rattle around in the boot of my Mercedes so I decided that I would build a wooden frame that they can sit in. I've designed the frame in such a way that it can hold two or four Jerry cans. If only two are carried then there is space for fuel filter, hand pump and various other odds and ends.

The idea is that I can safely carry up to 80 litre of petrol to the airfield by car. I can also put the frame in the aircraft, behind the seats and in that case I would take just two empty cans and use the remaining space for accessories. Needless to say, there is no wish to carry full fuel cans inside the fuselage! Apart from the obvious safety considerations, there is also the small matter of weight and balance to consider. But when one gets to the other end, some means of carting fuel from the petrol station is needed and for that purpose 40 litres should be sufficient.

I started making the frame today out of 9mm plywood. I need to get some aluminium angle and short coach bolts to complete the project and I will then paint the finished frame in G-JONL colours!

CAA says "processing"

2010-05-12T15:16:00.000+01:00

G-INFO has been updated to confirm that the CAA has received the Permit to Fly application and intends to process it by this coming Friday, 14th May.

Might be flying next week after all!

LAA says YES

2010-05-10T13:35:00.001+01:00

Postie brought me a letter this morning from the LAA saying that they have sent my Permit to Fly application on to the CAA.

Whilst this is definitely progress, another step along the way, happiness is tinged with frustration again. I now learn that when the permit is issued the CAA will send it back to the LAA who say they will "forward it as soon as we have checked it", then, in big bold letters "...the aircraft must not be flown until you have ... the Permit to Fly in your hand". This despite the fact that G-INFO provides an on line snapshot of the CAA's database that is updated daily. We can be sure that at least another week will be lost in all this postal nonsense.

It is hard to think of a more unnecessarily bureaucratic process, which seems to be designed to waste as much time and (my) money as possible.

The wait continues.

Whiling the time away

2010-05-10T10:36:00.000+01:00

While I'm waiting for the Permit to Fly, I've been helping out a pal at Kirkbride with rewiring the engine management system on his RV8. He is also using Dynon kit, so the problems are very similar to those I faced with G-JONL. It's an interesting problem and a lovely aeroplane to work on, so it's keeping me out of mischief... sort of.

I also did a little work yesterday on JONL. For the first time since we started test flying I had the cowlings off and did a full inspection of the engine bay.

I noticed that the water radiator is catching on the cowling very slightly. This is a known problem with Sportcruisers but fortunately it is easy to fix by glueing a piece of foam to the cowling in the appropriate place. The foam pushes up against the radiator and stops the two items from vibrating or moving with respect to one another.

I also took the opportunity to blank off part of the oil cooler and water radiator. The Sportcruiser is grossly overcooled for our climate (especially at the moment - it's only 5°C this morning and the overnight rain has fallen as snow on the fells!), so it is standard practice to blank off parts of the cooling system. G-SCZR, the other Sportcruiser at Kirkbride, has about two thirds of the oil cooler and one third of the water radiator blanked off and that seems to work well, so I've done the same on JONL.

Another area that seems to be problematic with Sportcruisers is the exhaust system, which can develop cracks due to vibration. A reinforced exhaust system is available but is only fitted if the cracks appear. I carefully checked mine and, for now at least, there is no evidence of cracks at all.

There are many jubilee clips in the engine bay and these have a habit of working loose, especially after initial build, so I went round and carefully checked that they were all good and tight. Most were, but it was a useful exercise, for I discovered that the clip screw on the hot air scat pipe to the airbox was preventing full deployment of the carb heat control. It's not clear whether this is because the clip has moved, or if I installed it wrongly. Anyway, it would explain, perhaps, why we were getting little in the way of RPM drop with carb heat on. The fix was easy and the carb heat control now has full travel.

All of which is fair enough but it's not flying! Hopefully I'll hear soon that my Permit to Fly application has been passed on to the CAA.

Embroiled in bureaucracy

2010-05-05T11:40:00.000+01:00

I've just heard that the application for Permit to Fly is unlikely to escape from the LAA until the end of this week. The culprit is yet more bureaucracy associated with the ballistic recovery system, which I thought we had finally put to bed some weeks ago.

Once escape velocity from the LAA is achieved, the CAA will most likely take two weeks to rubber stamp the application and issue the Permit to Fly, so it looks like it will be late May before we are home and dry.

It is very, very frustrating!

April in review

2010-04-30T23:00:00.001+01:00

The month that G-JONL fledged!

April started with a waiting game and ended with another waiting game. As March gave way to April I was waiting for the Permit Release Flight Certificate to enable us to start flight testing. A certain amount of bureaucracy followed to ensure that insurance was not only in place but had been shown to be in place.

By the middle of the month JONL had completed her first flight and within a week the entire flight testing programme had been completed. The forms were duly filled in and submitted. Hence the second waiting game commenced - this time for the Permit to Fly.

Meanwhile, the spring has finally sprung in Westmorland Flyer-land so your scribe is keeping himself busy with gardening duties so as not to pine for the open skies too much during what should, hopefully, be the final interregnum.

May should be fun!

A couple of queries

2010-04-28T12:49:00.001+01:00

I received an e-mail from the LAA this morning with a couple of queries on the flight test reports that were quickly and easily addressed. Everything else is apparently in order and it looks like the application for a Permit to Fly will be sent off to the CAA in the next day or two. Progress is being made!

Flight trials completed

2010-04-26T11:56:00.001+01:00

All the flight trials for G-JONL have been completed successfully.

Last Wednesday David and I flew up to Prestwick to check the Mode-S radar transponder and take a run at the Instrument Landing System. It comes as a bit of a surprise to those based further south that we have neither of these facilities at nearby airfields in Cumbria - the nearest ILS/radar equipped airports are Newcastle and Prestwick, both over 60 nautical miles away from Kirkbride.

Wednesday was a cracking VFR flying day, with endless visibility and virtually no cloud. The odd bit of turbulence was encountered along the way but for the most part it was easy, enjoyable flying. Routing over the Solway at Anthorn we then headed west to Wigtown and on to Castle Kennedy, where David made a low approach. The north westerly wind created quite a lot of turbulence and as we got to short final we decided that there was just too much of a cross wind to make a safe landing.

Onwards to Stranraer and then on up the coast to Girvan and Turnberry, where we were able to perform further checks on the VOR navigation system before contacting Prestwick Radar for the next stage of our flight. We wanted to check that the Mode-S transponder was visible to radar, squawking the correct code and providing Mode-C altitude information. Everything worked perfectly, so we requested vectors to the ILS for runway 31.

ATC vectored us through the localiser at about 12 miles range, enabling me to observe the behaviour of the vertical (azimuth) indicator. This was the first time I'd seen the instrument working and it was great to see it behave exactly as expected, with stable indications as we passed through the runway extended centreline.

We were then vectored to close the localiser from the right and I was able to precisely line up with the runway centreline, vertical needle dead centre. At this stage, ATC's job is done and we were instructed to descend with the procedure. As we were only at around 2000ft we had to fly level for a while until we intercepted the glide slope, then we reduced power and started the gentle descent to the runway, keeping the horizontal needle centred all the way down.

There is something very satisfying about flying an ILS approach! The accuracy of the system is amazing and, as we descended with the procedure, I had my eyes in the cockpit, keeping the needles in the centre, whilst David did lookout. He continued to report two whites, two reds (meaning that we were on exactly the correct glide slope) and spot on the runway centreline all the way down to 200ft where we called the go-around and climbed away.

The ILS works then!

Our tests completed, we headed back along the coast to Stranraer and across to Castle Kennedy, where we once again tried an approach to land. No go, unfortunately - the cross wind was just too much and there was a lot of turbulence from the nearby trees, so we went around again and departed for Carlisle airport.

The landing at Carlisle was uneventful and concluded a 2 hours and 50 minutes flight - by far the longest flight that G-JONL has undertaken to date and more than sufficient to meet the endurance flight requirements. Sportcruisers are still an unusual sight at Carlisle, so there was soon a gathering of interested onlookers, one of whom took a picture of the two intrepid travellers. This was also G-JONL's first "land away" - not required as apart of the flight trials but good to have done, nonetheless. After a cup of coffee in the airport café we were on our way back to Kirkbride and the conclusion of a magnificent day's flying.

The following day, David and I completed all the paperwork and that has now been sent to the LAA for checking. This apparently takes about a week and the LAA then issues a request to the CAA to issue the Permit to Fly, which takes around ten working days to pop out of the system. So with a bit of luck, G-JONL should be fully permitted by mid May. Then we shall have fun!

Party time!

2010-04-18T11:49:00.009+01:00

Yesterday was my opportunity to thank the people who have helped me to build G-JONL. Although it was a somewhat blustery day, David, my test pilot, was able to do a few circuits, demonstrating the aeroplane and, at the same time doing a few more tests.

Ten of us watched from the balcony of the LAA strut caravan as David did flap-less and glide approaches. The strong wind, about 20º off runway heading made the flying a bit more challenging but that was no problem for David. A couple of low approach and go-arounds finished off the flying display.

After the flight everyone had a chance to take a look at the finished aeroplane on the ground before retiring to the LAA caravan for some lunch, kindly prepared by my riveter-in-chief, Chris. His daughter, Lizzy (who has herself been a key helper during the build by virtue of having small enough hands to get the nut onto the base of the rudder) made an aeroplane cake that was enjoyed by all. Some champaign was quaffed and everyone had a good time.

Roll of honour

Chris - riveter in chief and general assistant whenever another pair of hands was needed
Lizzy - owner of small enough hands to get the rudder lower mounting nut attached, a task that is completely impossible for blokes with normal sized hands
Jim - official photographer
Andrew - helped with mounting the wings
Ian - helped with loading and unloading
David - Chief Test Pilot extraordinaire
Alan - transport manager
David - workshop facilities for the initial build work
Tom - my LAA inspector
Mike - LAA Strut boss and good all round engineer who helped in all sorts of ways during the final build

Many thanks to you all. I couldn't have done it without you.

Two hours of test flying

2010-04-15T21:03:00.002+01:00

On the day when civil aviation was, according to the media, completely shut down, we did a couple of hours of very productive flight testing in two separate flights of one hour's duration. With the initial flight out of the way yesterday, I was able to accompany my test pilot as we explored the flight envelope and gradually gained more experience of our new bird.

Amongst the flight test we completed were

Maximum power checks on the ground
Taxiing
Take off performance
Climb performance
Handling in the stall
Lateral & directional stability
Simulated baulked landing
Fast cruise
Dive to Vne (the "never exceed" speed)
Functional checks on all flying controls
Checks of all flight instruments
A radio check on both radios with Carlisle Airport, from about 40 miles away at St Bees Head
Fuel systems

That's a lot of checks and it was a fairly busy two hours of flying for us both. The result is that we are more or less finished with the local flight testing and now need to fly to Prestwick to test the radar transponder and instrument landing system. This will also be the endurance test (two hours minimum flying).

I'm busy with other things for the next few days but I hope we will be able to do the Prestwick trip on Wednesday next week.

I must say that G-JONL behaved impeccably throughout all our tests today. It feels capable and stable, it is quiet and free of vibration and everything behaves just as it should. All in all a great day's flying. And not a contrail to be seen!

Fledged at last

2010-04-14T17:13:00.003+01:00

I'm delighted to be able to announce that G-JONL slipped the surly bonds at 11:59 this morning and went on to complete an hour of uneventful test flying.

The first test flight was a very short affair, just one circuit, because it was discovered that the trimmers were configured incorrectly (note to self: they operate in the opposite sense to the associated control surface you eejit!). A few minutes with the crimping tool and that problem was fixed.

My intrepid test pilot then went on to complete another 55 minutes of varied flying and, on his return, announced that the aircraft flies beautifully.

There'll be more Blogging on this momentous day a little later but for now here is a picture of the first take off. I shall try to write more when I get back from a celebratory pint at my local!

Conundrum resolved

2010-04-12T13:28:00.000+01:00

A series of e-mail exchanges with LAA Engineering has provided a resolution to the conundrum posed in my earlier posting.

The LAA is going to issue a revised PFRC which will include a trip to Prestwick via Castle Kennedy for the purpose of testing the ILS and radar transponder. This flight will also, conveniently, constitute the two hour endurance test.

Because of the awkward terrain hereabouts, including big mountains and large stretches of water, the LAA has also agreed to slightly relax the 25 mile radius rule, provided we remain clear of the mountains.

All in all a good result, swiftly implemented. Hats off to the LAA for taking a speedy, practical approach.

An interesting conundrum

2010-04-12T10:27:00.000+01:00

Last night I was going through all the flight test requirements, trying to sort out a programme when I came across an interesting problem.

The PFRC only permits flight within 25nm of Kirkbride airfield. For most flying that is fine but it poses a problem with testing the avionics. The nearest airfields equipped with radar and/or instrument landing systems (ILS) are Newcastle (53nm), Prestwick (60nm), Durham (66nm) and Blackpool (67nm). G-JONL has both Mode-S radar transponder (with altitude encoder) and ILS Localiser/Glide slope installed.

The area around Kirkbride has no radar coverage at all - one of the few places in the UK to have none. To do a meaningful check on the transponder and altitude encoder it will be necessary to get a lot closer to a radar station than I can currently fly.

The ILS poses even more of a problem. A flight trial will necessarily involve flying the approach down to within a height of few hundred feet of the runway threshold. This means that I pretty well have to fly at least 50nm to do the test.

I've asked the LAA what we can do about this interesting conundrum and await the reply with interest!

The PFRC has arrived

2010-04-11T11:15:00.001+01:00

Hurrah! The Permit Flight Release Certificate arrived in yesterday's post, enabling test flying to proceed. I still need to confirm that the insurance has been upgraded to full flight risks cover but hopefully that should be completed early this coming week.

The official maiden flight is set for 17th April, although it is probable that David, my test pilot will do some low level hops along the runway during the week before G-JONL finally slips the surly bonds next weekend.

Permit update

2010-04-06T15:09:00.002+01:00

I've just received an e-mail from the LAA to say that the Permit Flight Release Certificate (PFRC) should be with me before the end of the week. I'm now arranging to upgrade my insurance to full flight risks cover in readiness for the maiden flight, most likely on 17th April.

Not long now!

Whilst we're waiting

2010-04-03T19:53:00.003+01:00

Whilst I'm waiting for the paperwork to come through I decided I might as well complete a few minor tweaks.

Given that it now seems reasonably certain that the BRS will be approved, I decided to affix all the warning labels, including the rather verbose warning that's required in the cockpit. Fortunately my label printing machine makes a reasonable job although it's still not as nice as the silk screening used elsewhere in the cockpit. There are also three labels on the fuselage - one on the rocket egress cover and one on either side of the cockpit, close the the place where rescue services would be expected to operate.

Next, I fixed the BRS handle in place and finally attached the side panels for the centre console. These had been left off hitherto because once on there is rather poor access to the electrical wiring, of which there is a fair amount.

The BRS was protected from inadvertent activation in transit by a wire lock through the trigger pin and a ty-wrap around the safety pin, preventing it from being removed. Both of these have been removed, so it is now possible to arm the BRS just be removing the safety pin. Pulling the handle will, of course, fire the rocket. The safety pin label has to be replaced with one that states that it is to be removed in order to arm the rocket. The LAA required a two-stage firing system and this is how that has been achieved.

Finally, I finished a job that I've been meaning to do for some time. I wire locked the eight exhaust springs, so that if a spring should fail the exhaust pipe still remains more or less in place. This is not a mandatory requirement but it seemed to be a sensible precaution.

IMC rating revalidation
Although G-JONL is not IFR capable I, as its pilot am, by virtue of my IMC rating. Every two years this has to be revalidated and today was the day. I drove from Kirkbride to Carlisle Airport and after a short briefing my examiner and I clambered into my old Warrior, G-JLIN, bound for Newcastle and a couple of ILS approaches.

It must be said that with all this building and comparatively little IMC flying, I was rather out of practice. The first attempt was distinctly ragged although we both agreed that it would have worked out and a safe landing could have been made. The second approach was altogether better. We then returned to Carlisle and did an NDB/DME non precision approach to round off the revalidation.

There's a lot of talk of the IMC rating being withdrawn (by Europe - who else?), which I think would be a massive safety issue. As long as I can keep it I will and, who knows, perhaps those of us that are current will get some sort of grandfather rights.

March in review

2010-03-31T21:50:00.000+01:00

A full year has passed since I started on this amazing project.

March was a very productive month, more noticeably so because it came after several months in which the weather, for the most part, contrived to frustrate progress. Indeed, I was really quite surprised how quickly it was possible to sign everything off from an engineering inspector's perspective.

By the middle of the month I was able to submit all the paperwork for the permit to test fly and now, at the end of the month it seems that it will only be a matter of days before we are able to slip the surly bonds.

April should be interesting!

Breaking news!

2010-03-31T13:26:00.000+01:00

I've just got back from a few days away to find an e-mail waiting for me from the LAA. Apparently the Ballistic Recovery System installation has been signed off, following successful load tests at the Sportcruiser factory.

I have some minor paperwork to attend to but otherwise it seems that a major uncertainty has been removed and it is likely that the permit to test fly is imminent.

Pity about the weather... it's snowing again!

Fireproof plate

2010-03-29T11:09:00.000+01:00

With the paperwork working its way through the LAA bureaucracy there isn't a lot I can do to progress the project. After a couple of weeks on other things, including recovering from a major crash on my main computer, I spent part of yesterday up at Kirkbride airfield tidying up a few loose ends.

One minor item outstanding was the requirement to have a fireproof identification plate attached to the aircraft fuselage. This requirement probably goes back to the days when aircraft were made of wood and were likely to be more or less completely consumed in the event of fire. These days it does seem a little pointless, but rules is rules, so a fireproof plate we shall have.

It turns out to be a bit of a palaver. In order to be truly fireproof, the plate must be made of stainless steel, which is not the sort of thing that engravers typically keep stock of. I fixed this problem by buying a sheet of the stuff on eBay and having it cut up into lots of small plates, 40mm x 60mm. I had rather a lot more plates than I need(!) so I offered the surplus to other Sportcruiser builders via our Yahoo! Group. The considerable take-up on my free offer suggests that sourcing the materials was a problem for others too.

The next problem was getting it engraved. We have three shops in Penrith that offer engraving services. Two were adamant that they could not engrave stainless steel because it is too hard and their machines weren't up to the job. The third shop said "no problem", even though it appears to have the same engraving machine. Go figure, as they say.

Anyway, shop number three did a nice job and the fireproof plate is now suitably attached to G-JONL's fuselage.

One year ago today...

2010-03-25T00:00:00.003Z

Exactly one year ago today Sportcruiser quick-build kit serial number 700320 arrived in Cumbria. Later it became known as LAA project number 338-14889 and some time after that G-JONL.

Along the way several thousand rivets have been set, a few hundred metres of wiring have been installed, an engine has been transformed from a mysterious thing in a box to a working propulsion unit at the front of a nicely painted airframe. The kit of parts has become an aeroplane.

It's sometimes hard to think back to those early days and the enormity of the project I took on, ably assisted by a few friends. A great deal has been learned along the way and there is a lot more to discover as we head towards flight testing and permit issue.

I hope and very much believe that the second year of this project will be every bit as exciting as what has gone before.

Permit application update

2010-03-24T13:31:00.000Z

I was pleased to receive an e-mail from the LAA this morning, just one week after I submitted the paperwork to them. They are working on the application and had a few, easily answered, questions.

It also looks like the BRS issue is close to resolution and therefore should not delay the permit to fly much, if at all. The factory has done the required load tests and the installation passed with flying colours.

Progress is being made!

Documents submitted to LAA

2010-03-17T16:09:00.001Z

The application for Issue of a Permit to Fly went off to the Light Aviation Association this afternoon, complete with a big stack of supporting forms and other documentation.

I now feel strangely idle, unable to really do much while the wheels of bureaucracy turn. The biggest potential issue is the Ballistic Recovery System, which is still not fully approved, even though it is a standard factory option. Hopefully that'll be resolved soon and it won't unduly delay my application.

There's still a few things I can be getting on with whilst I am waiting and as it happens I'll be fairly busy with other hobbies and activities over the next couple of weeks, so the wait shouldn't be too frustrating...

Inspector says YES

2010-03-14T17:40:00.002Z

Tom, my LAA inspector, signed off all the remaining paperwork for G-JONL this morning. "As far as I'm concerned, you can go flying today" said he.

Well... not quite. I now have to negotiate the bureaucracy that stands between my signed off aircraft and its first test flight. Apparently this takes around a couple of weeks... we shall see. And there's the small matter of insurance. I not only need to upgrade the ground risks cover to all risks, I also have to demonstrate to the Civil Aviation Authority that I have done so.

Nevertheless, it is a big step forward. The build is completed, more or less one year after I started. Not bad. Not bad at all! I feel a celebratory pint coming on.

Paperwork, paperwork!

2010-03-13T23:34:00.000Z

I've spend much of today sorting out the paperwork for submission to the LAA. Tomorrow I am meeting my ever helpful LAA inspector to get the last few items signed off and with a bit of luck I should be able to get all the documents off to the LAA some time next week.

The list of documents is really quite daunting but, in fairness, each document is important and necessary. It just takes a long time to collect all the information together and make neat copies of everything. Here's the list so far

Application for Permit to Fly
Inspection Schedule and Record book
Engine installation checklist
Fuel flow check sheet
Airfield information
Pilot information
Weight and Balance report
Aircraft radio installation approval form
Certificate of Registration
Aircraft radio licence
And last but not least, a cheque for the hefty initial permit to test fly fee (£540)

I think it's pretty well all there now, so I've put my inspector on mass signature alert for tomorrow morning!

Weight & balance

2010-03-13T12:20:00.000Z

The final major build task was completed yesterday, 12th March - weighing the completed aircraft. Necessarily this is the last job, as the aeroplane has to be in its final, ready to fly configuration.

There are two distinct aspects to the weighing - weight and balance.

Weight is the easy one. It is the overall weight of the aircraft, usually expressed as the empty weight, that is without fuel, baggage, crew, etc. The empty weight does include engine oil, coolants, etc. All aircraft have a maximum take of weight (MTOW) and the difference between MTOW and the empty weight is the available load.

Balance is a little more complicated. There are limits on how the weight can be distributed around the airframe. For example, if heavy baggage were to be loaded well aft this might give such a large nose-up attitude that there is insufficient elevator authority to control the aircraft in the descent. Take off would be no problem but the landing would really spoil your day! There are fore, aft, port and starboard limits for all aircraft and these collectively define the permissible weight and balance envelope, within which flight is safe and legal.

This is clearly a job for a specialist, so I enlisted the assistance of PlaneWeighs Ltd. These people weigh everything that flies, from microlights to 747s so they probably know what they are doing.

Chris and I arrived at Kirkbride just after 9am to find Steve Fail already on site and unloading his van. We quickly set up three weighing pads, one for each wheel. These pads use a hydraulic system and are good for 13,600kg, rather more than this particular task will require! The pads take a few minutes to stabilise, so we pulled G-JONL on to the pads and left them for a few minutes whilst Steve set up his computer.

The actual weighing process is, of course, very quick. Bottom line was 385kg, which is about what I was expecting, given that G-JONL is well loaded with avionics and has the ballistic recovery system fitted.I'd reasoned that anything under 400kg would be just fine.

Slightly more complex is determining the balance. This requires a datum, which is defined as the leading edge at the fourth rib out from the wing root. Using a couple of laser markers, Steve was able to accurately measure the precise location, aft for the main landing gear and forward for the nose wheel. These distances are the arm at which the weight is located and from the combination of arm and weight, one can compute the balance - in effect, the centre of gravity.

With all these figures it was now possible to construct the empty weight and balance report. In addition, a couple of reasonable real life examples have to be prepared, allowing the weight and balance envelope to be explored. We chose pilot, no passenger or baggage for one case and pilot plus passenger and baggage in the aft baggage area as the other case. Both yielded C of G measurements well within the limits defined for the aircraft.

We then retired for a much needed cup of coffee and some warmth in the LAA Strut caravan, where Steve and I completed the LAA weight and balance report. Steve also produced a nicely bound full report with rather more details of the methodology, etc.

Some people try to cut costs by doing the weight and balance report themselves, using domestic scales or whatever comes to hand. For the cost of getting it done professionally, I am more than happy with the end result and consider it to represent good value for money.

Getting ready for the weigh-in

2010-03-11T19:00:00.016Z

With the aircraft weighing booked for Friday 12th March, I spent a few hours at the airfield today, getting everything ready.

The object of the exercise was to to get the aircraft into its completed, empty configuration. Firstly I fitted the wheel spats, something that I had not done since the aircraft was painted. They certainly make it look very pretty, although I am quite nervous of such close-fitting spats for flying into grass strips. They look like they will probably fill up with mud and grass clippings rather quickly! So whilst it is right to do the weigh-in with them fitted, I'll probably not keep them on for long.

I also finally fitted the wing root fairings. I'd been a bit nervous of riveting these on, in case I had any reason to get at the wing root again. I think that time has now passed. I hope the wings won't need to come off for a long time.

Next, I had to empty the fuel from the port wing tank. I'd loaded 20 litres for engine tests and despite quite a few engine runs and some taxying trials, it would good to see that about 15 litres came out. Either someone has been kindly filling the tank for me or the Rotax engine is satisfactorily abstemious!

The cockpit was next. I've tended to use the rear baggage area as a place to store odds and ends so these were all removed for the duration. Whilst inside the cockpit I also took the opportunity to fit the compass card.

Finally, I had to remove the fuel pressure testing system in the engine bay and I concluded with a walk around to make sure that everything that should be there is there and nothing else.

Ready for weighing, Sir!

Aligning the control surfaces

2010-03-10T13:52:00.005Z

It is essential that the flight control surfaces are properly aligned and symmetrical. The deflection ranges are also tightly controlled. Accordingly, there is a certain amount of adjustment available for each of the control surfaces and trimmers. The control surfaces are:

Ailerons
Elevator
Rudder
Flaps
Aileron trim
Elevator trim

Acceptable deflection values and tolerances for most of these control surfaces are documented in the LAA type acceptance data sheet (TADS) and the task before us yesterday was to first measure and then, if necessary, adjust each surface to be within spec.

This activity is greatly assisted by a clever new gadget that has come on the market in recent years - a digital angle gauge. This is able to measure any angle from any baseline, to an accuracy of ±0.1°, which is a considerable improvement on the old fashioned protractors that we used to employ. To make a measurement, it is merely necessary to place the gauge on the surface in question, adjust the surface to its neutral position and then zero the gauge. Deflection angles can then be read directly off the gauge. The picture shows the digital protractor in use on one of the ailerons, before adjustment, showing a 15.6° downward angle from neutral.

Flaps
The flaps were easily adjusted and checked. The flap control mechanism features an eccentric pin, which engages with the flap and can be rotated to fine adjust the flap position. Each flap was adjusted in turn for the same deflection from horizontal whilst in the up position. This position became the neutral reference point for checking flap deployment at 15° and at 30°. Clearly it is a good idea that the flaps deploy symmetrically and the checks proved that indeed they do. You can see the final results in the table below.

Ailerons
First the ailerons had to be adjusted so that they are both in the neutral position with the stick centralised. This is easy enough to do by making small adjustments to the control rod end nearest the aileron. Both ailerons were very close and it was therefore only necessary to unscrew the rod ends a couple of turns to achieve perfect symmetry. Next, we checked the up and down deflections. Both are controlled by end stops in the cockpit and both were initially set a little to high. Again, minor adjustments brought the deflections into spec as shown below.

With the ailerons correctly aligned, it was now possible to check the deflections on the aileron trim tab. The permissible range for this tab is not specified, so the measurements were taken merely for the record.

Rudder

The rudder poses a pit of a problem, as it is a vertical surface that remains more or less vertical throughout its operating range, making it impossible to use the digital angle gauge. The approach we took was to place some masking tape on the horizontal stabiliser and mark the centre position and the two full deflection positions on the tape. The distances from the root of the rudder to the centre mark and from the centre mark to each extremity of movement were then measured. This gives a right angled triangle of measurements from which the angle of deflection can be calculated. My O-level mathematics came to the fore, reminding me that the angle is given by Θ=arctan(opposite/adjacent). I decided to spurn my old book of mathematical tables and instead used Google's excellent calculator function to compute the angles. The results were well within specification!

Elevator
Very satisfactorily, the elevator deflections were spot on when measured, so no adjustment was required. However, the elevator trim tab was a little way out, so it was necessary to adjust the reach of the actuator arm slightly.

The final results are shown in the table. All deflections are well within specification, so it now just remains for my inspector to sign off the associated paperwork and that'll be another major task completed.

Swinging the compass

2010-03-10T11:28:00.001Z

Another job completed! Yesterday, Chris and I performed the compass swing on G-JONL. The aircraft has a compensated magnetic compass mounted on top of the instrument coaming, which is used to set the Direction Indicator before and, where necessary, during flight. In effect, the magnetic compass is a reference instrument and therefore needs to be calibrated as accurately as possible.

Unfortunately, aircraft have lots of magnetic materials, including parts of the engine and , of course, electrical circuits that can generate magnetic fields. So, rather like a ship's compass, it is necessary to compensate for these fields and to calibrate the compass at all points on the compass rose.

Using a prismatic compass, We carefully aligned the aircraft on magnetic North. This was greatly assisted by lining up the two comm antennas and the tail plane to determine the precise centreline of the aircraft. A quick check of the aircraft compass and, yay! it shows exactly North. The engine was run and all instruments, etc. switched on. No change. This is going the be easy!

Next up was East. Here the compass was quite some way out, reading around 70°. There are compensation magnets to correct these errors, one for N/S and another for E/W. A quick tweak of the E/W screw and 90° was easily obtained. From there to South and about a 3° error. The trick here is to halve that error and apply 1.5° correction using the N/S adjustment. Finally round to West, which showed a negligible error of 1° - not worth attempting to correct.

With the four cardinal points sorted, it was time to swing around the compass rose at 30° intervals. All readings were within three degrees, which is perfectly acceptable. Being somewhat unimpressed with the scruffy piece of paper provided for recording the results, I made up a new compass record card using Visio and that is ready to be attached to the compass when I am next at the airfield.

Another significant milestone on the way to the permit to test fly!

A flight to Cark

2010-03-05T16:00:00.001Z

All work and no play makes John a dull boy, so it was particularly pleasant to be able to fly with my Chief Test pilot designate, David, down to Cark, which is a small airfield on the southern edge of the Lake District.

It was a lovely day, with excellent visibility. There is still an awful lot of snow on the Lake District fells! I'd never been into Cark before, so it was nice to get another new airfield in the log as well as getting a bit more experience of flying in a Sportcruiser.

Test pilot

2010-03-01T13:25:00.002Z

As the prospect of flying G-JONL gets ever closer, it is time to get my chief test pilot organised.

Although I was a little put out that another Sportcruiser turned up at Kirkbride, all finished and flying, before I even had the wings on my bird, the fact is that it's ended up by being very convenient for, as a result, I have easy access to local pilots with actual flying experience in a Sportcruiser.

David is that man. He has 1300 hours or so of flying experience, which is a lot more than I can muster and he has 20 hours on the Sportcruiser so far, and incrementing.

To register David as a test pilot we had to fill in yet another a form, naturally, this one detailing his experience and willingness to undertake the test programme. The form has now been sent off to the LAA and we await their deliberations.

The initial flight has to be done solo, so David will be on danger money for that! After the first outing, we can travel together, with one of us flying and the other taking notes. There's 17 pages of flight tests to be done that explore the entire flight envelope. I'm delighted to have David to help me.

The inspector visits

2010-03-01T12:49:00.001Z

Tom, my friendly and ever helpful LAA inspector came to give JONL a thorough inspection yesterday. He was particularly interested in the flying surfaces and flight control systems so we spent a good hour poking around in dark recesses with a torch and waggling control surfaces back and forth.

There were a couple of observations that I will attend to, even though Tom was content with them as they were. We had a good furtle around in the engine and propeller department and a bit of a peek at the avionics and instrumentation, though, as Tom succinctly put it, "you probably know rather more about that sort of thing than I do"!

We also spent a while checking out the undercarriage and Tom carefully inspected the wing main spar connections and bolt torquing at the wing roots. All in all it was a pretty exhaustive inspection, which I am very glad of.

With the inspection complete, we repaired to the club house for some much needed warmth and refreshments. Tom then went through my build stage log and signed off everything apart from the weight and balance (yet to be done, scheduled for 12-March) and the final inspection. We also filled in lots of information in the airframe and engine technical logbooks, making sure that all the mandatory mods are properly referenced and addressed.

So I'm almost there! I'm starting to collect all the various bits of paperwork together for submission to the LAA and with a bit of luck I should be able to get everything to them before the end of March.

Fuel flow (electric pump)

2010-03-01T12:11:00.000Z

After a week of little progress due to some consultancy work and a rather nasty cold, I'm back on the project!

One of the remaining tasks was to measure fuel flows. The engine requires 27 litres per hour at full chat and the fuel system must be able to provide 125% of the maximum consumption, i.e. 33.75 litres per hour. The minimum permitted fuel pressure is 0.15 bar and it must be possible to deliver the required throughput whilst maintaining the minimum pressure.

All of this means that a test rig has to be constructed that allows fuel to be metered and measured. The LAA provides guidance on how this should be achieved as shown in the diagram to the right. I needed to procure a couple of small fuel taps and some hose. Fortunately, I already had a suitable pressure gauge, previously rendered redundant by the decision to go for an electronic engine management system. The picture below shows my practical implementation.

The Sportcruiser has both electric and mechanical (engine driven) fuel pumps. Both must be able to separately deliver the required throughput. One of the known problems with the electric pump is the ability to deliver the necessary pressure and fuel flow simultaneously. In part this is because of the unique (to the UK) requirement for a vapour return line, which continuously siphons 3-4 litres per hour back to the port fuel tank. Recently the LAA has agreed that the pump cam be upgraded to a more powerful version.

Sure enough, I couldn't get anywhere near the required fuel flow with the standard pump. The pump would just about provide 0.2 bar of static pressure , i.e. with no fuel flow, but as soon as any significant fuel flow was permitted, the pressure dropped way below the 0.15 bar minimum. At 0.1 bar, I obtained a paltry 380ml of fuel in one minute, the equivalent of 22.8 litres per hour - well below the required throughput. Fail!

In anticipation of this problem, I had obtained the higher pressure pump and this was duly installed and the tests re-run.

What a difference! Firstly, the static pressure is now around 0.3 bar, which is nicely in the middle of the permitted range. I set the fuel pressure adjustment tap to 0.15 bar and recorded 320ml in 30 seconds, the equivalent of 38.4 litres per hour - comfortably above the 33.75 required.

I still need to do the mechanical fuel pump throughput tests. Rather alarmingly, this involves running the engine at full chat and measuring the residual fuel flow, which must be at least 25% of the maximum engine consumption. This is clearly a test to be done on a nice day (which we have notably not been getting recently) and with the assistance of a friend or two. Frankly the idea of making fuel flow measurements with the propeller whizzing around at full speed less than one metre from where I have to stand terrifies me and offends against my every safety instinct. It'll have to be done but I am not looking forward to it!

February in review

2010-02-28T23:00:00.041Z

Quite a lot happened in February, despite the continuing freezing weather. I seem to have been working in a cold hangar for ever! The thing that keeps me going is the prospect of getting G-JONL flying soon, with a whole summer ahead to do it in.

With the wings on, the kit of bits at last looks like an aeroplane. I fitted the control sticks, which are best kept out of the cockpit during construction, as they really do get in the way. That enabled me to check out the operation of all the flying surfaces and, of course, finally check that the trims and radios work properly as a complete system.

With a feeling of real anticipation, the engine was filled with oil and coolant. No leaks! It is a bit of a palaver to purge the engine - a process of getting oil into all the nooks and crannies of the engine before actually starting it - but eventually I succeeded, following Rotax's excellent instructional video on the subject.

The final bit of preparation was to pitch the propeller - a task made easy by the use of a digital angle gauge.

Running the engine for the first time was very much a seminal moment - proof that the project is nearing completion. It was good to be able to share the experience with some of my friends that have helped me along the way. being able to do a couple of taxy runs was just icing on the cake but with an important purpose - building confidence in the aircraft's aerodynamics.

Finally, on the last day of the month, the inspector visited and gave the aircraft a really good going over before signing off almost all the remaining stages. I've not written about that yet but I will do, soon.

So February was very much the beginning of the end of the build project. March should see completion and, maybe, even a bit of flying!

Running the engine

2010-02-21T12:16:00.003Z

Friday 19 February 2010, Kirkbride Airfield, Cumbria

Probably the most significant day in the life of G-JONL since the project began in March 2009. Today we started the engine and the aircraft moved under its own power for the first time.

My friends Chris and Jim and I arrived at the airfield early on Friday morning. First we had to move many gyrocopters and the resident biplane, a Steen Skybolt, whose place in the corner of the hangar I had acquired for final build. I then pulled JONL out, blinking, into the brilliant sunlight and could see the finished product properly for the first time.

A few final checks on oil and coolant level and it was time to attempt the initial engine start.

Initially nothing doing. No signs of life at all. Unable to find anything wrong I had another try.

Suddenly the engine burst into life. I can only assume that it took a little while for sufficient fuel to get to the carburettors although I would have expected the electric fuel pump to have done that, so there is a bit of investigation to do there.

Immediately I realised that neither tachometer (in the D120 Engine Management System (EMS) and the backup analogue instrument) were working. Not an immediate problem but definitely needing to be investigated.

I ran the engine for a few minutes, letting it warm up, whilst carefully watching the engine instruments for any abnormal behaviour - none noted. I also checked the magneto cuts on both Mag-A and Mag-B worked OK, each causing a small drop in RPM. The Alternator was charging OK and all the alarms were extinguished.

After shutting the engine down, I started investigating the tachometer problem and discovered a rather silly wiring error, which was duly corrected. Still no joy. Further investigation turned up a broken lead to one of the connectors behind the instrument panel and when that was corrected, the EMS tachometer burst into life. The analogue tachometer problem proved to be rather more intractable, so I decided to defer further diagnostic work until the aircraft was back in the hangar.

It was time to try a bit of slow speed manoeuvring. Because the nose wheel is merely a castor, low speed steering is achieved via differential braking, so it was important to be confident that the braking system was working well before having to use it in earnest.

Everything seemed to be working perfectly so I decided to venture out onto the runway and do a slow taxy run. The runway is about 1km in length, so it was possible to get a good feel for how the aircraft handles on the ground.

A completely successful run! The rudder starts working almost as soon as the aircraft is moving, so there is almost no need to use the brakes to offset the natural tendency for the aircraft to yaw left, due to the gyroscopic effects of the engine. Time to try a faster run.

I got up sufficient speed on this run to just get the nose wheel off the ground, so the effects of the elevator, rudder and, to some extend, ailerons could be evaluated. Everything seems to be perfect.

We achieved everything I had hoped to for the first engine run and more besides. We returned G-JONL to the hangar and parked her in her new position - a promotion, no less, for she is now closer to the hangar doors!

My thanks to Chris and Jim for their assistance during this important day. Photograph and video credits to Jim. Lunch credits to Chris!

The engine runs!

2010-02-19T17:51:00.000Z

And the aeroplane has moved, rather well it must be said, under its own steam.

More later. I'm off to the pub to celebrate with the team.

Pitching the propeller

2010-02-18T23:39:00.002Z

The propeller on G-JONL is a three-blade, fixed pitch ground adjustable type. Each blade has to be separately adjusted to the same pitch as its siblings. The question is, what pitch angle to use?

A fine pitch would be great for short take off runs, whilst a coarse pitch gives better cruise speeds. It is because of the conflicting requirements at these two extremes of the flight envelope that more complex aircraft have variable pitch propellers.

Whilst I have not ruled out fitting a variable pitch propeller one day, for the time being I've decided to stick with the fixed pitch for simplicity and lower cost of ownership. Fewer things to go wrong too! So today I spent a happy hour or two setting the pitch on each of the three blades of my propeller.

Received wisdom is that a 17° pitch relative to the plane of the propeller and measured close to the tip is a good starting point. This should give a good cruise speed without compromising take-off performance too much. To measure this requires that each blade in turn is placed horizontal and then the angular measurement and adjustment made at a known point on the blade. I am using a Wixey digital angle gauge, which makes the task a lot easier.

Using a post, held vertical in my Workmate bench, it was easy to find the centre of the propeller and extend that out to the tip so that the blades could be aligned to the horizontal. It was then just a case of applying the protractor first to the hub of the propeller to obtain the reference plane and then to the tip of each blade in turn.

The whole job took about an hour to complete and the first test will be tomorrow when we start the engine. Any significant out-of-trim will give rise to vibration. Hopefully we'll have none of that!

A treatise on Mogas

2010-02-18T22:51:00.000Z

Mogas, otherwise known as unleaded petrol is what my engine prefers over Avgas. I prefer it too, as Avgas has a little lead in it, which tends to gum up the valves over time. Avgas is also a lot more expensive that Mogas and using it halves the maintenance interval for the engine.

If you drive a petrol engined car then petrol is petrol is petrol. Essentially it's all much of a muchness and most motorists will go to whatever garage offers the lowest price today. Wouldst that it was so for petrol burning aero engines!

Firstly, the Rotax engine likes a reasonably high octane fuel. Fortunately, 97 octane fuel isn't too hard to find and is ideal. A bigger problem is that a lot of petrol these days has 5% or even more of ethanol, which is a form of alcohol. Our CAA forbids the use of mogas that contains ethanol because, amongst other things, it is claimed that the ethanol can damage certain components, especially aluminium fuel tanks and rubber piping. Whether this is a real threat at such low levels of ethanol is a moot point - the problem is that if the CAA forbids it then one is flying illegally if it's in the tank and in the event of an incident, even one unrelated to the fuel being used, insurance is likely to be invalidated.

Fortunately, it is still possible to get petrol that has no ethanol, though it is unclear for how much longer. It is also fairly easy to test for ethanol in fuel. It turns out that Total's Excellium 97 is ethanol free, at least for the time being, so that is what I intend to use.

Getting ready to start the engine

2010-02-18T21:55:00.000Z

In preparation for starting the engine for the first time, hopefully tomorrow, I spent a bit of time today making sure all was ready.

Firstly, I purged the engine oil system. This involves pressurising the system using an air compressor, then rotating the engine by hand until good oil pressure is shown on the engine instruments. The system is pressurised by applying air pressure to the oil tank breather. I discovered that a standard quick release air hose connector is exactly the right size to make a good connection to this hose. It is also necessary to block off the oil pipe from the engine sump to the oil tank. This I achieved with a short length of garden hose, sealed at one end. A bit of gentle warming of the open end, using a heat gun and the hose slipped onto the oil tank easily. It took about 20-30 turns of the propeller to get oil pressure showing on the instruments in the cockpit.

I also put about 20 litres of fuel in the port tank (the one with the vapour return line) and checked that the electric fuel pump gave fuel pressure and fuel flow. Due to the vapour return line, there is always a small fuel flow, even with the engine not running. I measured the vapour return flow at around 2.5 litres per hour, which is about what I was expecting.

So now we have coolant, oil and fuel all in the engine at the same time. The only other thing needed is a spark. The plan is to apply that to the mix tomorrow, when we attempt to start the engine for the first time.

Is it really a year?

2010-02-13T17:07:00.000Z

My pal Chris phoned me today and said "it must be about a year since you first went to see the Sportcruiser". In fact it turns out to be just a little more than a year - I made the trip down to Cornwall to view the kit for the first time on 3rd February 2009, having seen an advertisement in Flyer Magazine.

So the project is slightly more than a year old. That said, I didn't actually get my mitts on the kit until 25 March, so perhaps that should be the first anniversary? It's certainly been an interesting year! I'm at the stage now where it feels like the build project is part of my life (sad, eh?). In fact I have thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, even if occasionally it has been frustrating.

As we move into the final phases of the build programme, I do occasionally find myself wondering what I will do with all the spare time when I am no longer building an aeroplane. Ah! I know - I shall be flying her!

Engine fluids

2010-02-12T15:17:00.001Z

The concentrated coolant for the engine arrived a couple of days ago, so I decided the time had come to start filling the engine with fluids. Firstly I mixed the concentrate antifreeze with Halfords' best deionised water to obtain the 50:50 ratio required for the Rotax engine.

The engine only needs a little over two litres of coolant. There is an overflow bottle that is supposed to be half full when the engine is cold, so I also part filled that. I'm assuming that air in the pipe between the header tank and the overflow bottle will be blown out with fluid once the engine is run.

I also filled the engine with oil. About 3.5 litres of AeroShell Sport Plus 4 oil is required but for now I've only added 3 litres. The remainder will go in when I purge the engine, to get the oil flowing into all the oil channels, the cooler and so on. Once that's done it will be easier to avoid overfilling.

Various reports have indicated that it's not unusual to find odd bits of swarf in the fuel tanks and for these sometimes to get jammed in the drain plug at the lowest point in the tank, causing it to drip. The top tip, therefore was to put a few litres of petrol in each tank, swish it about a bit, then remove the drain plug completely to quickly drain the fuel back out again.

I did this yesterday on both tanks. Both the drain plugs were completely clean when removed and despite vigorously swilling the fuel around the tanks, no noticeable solids came out when the tanks were drained. A little Loctite on the threads and the drain plugs were reinstalled, ready for filling the tanks with fuel for the engine tests, which should finally happen next week.

I also completed the installation of the exhaust gas temperature probes in the cylinder 3 & 4 exhausts. This involves drilling a small (0.125") hole in each exhaust, close to the cylinder head, inserting the probe, sealing it with some high temperature silicone sealant and holding the whole ensemble together with a large jubilee clip. Not for the first time, I approached this small job with a certain amount of trepidation!

Odds and ends

2010-02-10T17:31:00.001Z

With the wings on, it was time to make up a list of all the jobs still to be done. Many tasks are simple, 2 minute jobs, such as wire locking the oil tank drain plug. Others are more time consuming, for example, alignment of the flying surfaces. Anyway, I've got a little list.

I've spent the last few trips to the airfield knocking some of these little jobs on the head. One such was the mounting of the air filter. The method proposed by the manufacturer fell well short of what my engineering pride would tolerate, so I spent some time on the PC designing a suitable plate to give a good solid mount. This holds the filter in place in the lower engine cowling but it can easily be removed by removing four screws.

The fibreglass cowling is not particularly thick in this general area and I was worried that it might not hold the rivnuts very well but it seems to be OK, for now at least. If the rivnuts work loose with vibration then it will be comparatively easy to reinforce the holes - a bridge to be crossed should I get to it.

I also wanted to improve on the throttle/choke control housing. This is just a piece of shaped aluminium with a large slot for the levers to protrude through. Small objects could easily fall through the hole. It also looked untidy and there are reports that a cold draught blows through the hole too. All in all, a better solution was needed!

I decided that a brush draught excluder - the sort used on doors might do the trick of filling in the slot yet allowing free movement of the control levers. A trip to B&Q yielded the necessary hardware and it was a fairly simple matter to glue a couple of pieces of brush strip in place, either side of the slot. The end result looks much nicer with the large gaping hole largely hidden from view by the brushes.

Other jobs have included securing the throttle and choke control cables within the engine bay, wire locking the ends and generally checking that everything will stay in place when the engine is first run. I also installed some heat shield material between around the water hoses to the radiator, where they pass perilously close to exhaust pipes.

This week I should get coolant and oil supplies delivered, so I'll be able to get the engine ready to be fired up. That's the next big job!

Fitting the control sticks

2010-02-04T23:52:00.007Z

Today was the first chance I'd had to get to the airport since fitting the wings last Sunday. In the meantime, I've made a rather lengthy list of jobs remaining to be done to complete the build and today I made a start of clearing a few items off said list.

The most important task was to fit the control sticks. I'd deliberately left this as long as possible because they really are in the way when doing pretty well any other work in the cockpit. With virtually everything done, there is now no reason not to fit them. In addition, there are various other tasks that are dependent on them being fitted.

It's not a big job but it is a bit of a fiddle. The sticks have to be manoeuvred into their mounting slots and there is a definite knack, which I clearly haven't fully mastered, to getting them to twist into place. I got them both in eventually but I'm not sure I could really tell you how I did it!

With the sticks installed, the cockpit area really does look the part. I couldn't resist sitting in the P1 seat and waggling the stick around whilst making dakka dakka dakka noises. Fortunately there was no-one else in the hangar. I think.

I also torqued the main spar bolts and aligned the flaps using a digital protractor. Finally, I installed the port wing locker Camlock fasteners.

All of which was totally eclipsed when David offered me a brief flight in the other resident Sportcruiser, G-SCZR. It was actually the first time I had ever flown in a Sportcruiser, even though I've been building one for nearly a year! Shortly after take off, at about 300ft, with me in the P2 seat, David said those immortal words "you have control" and indeed I had. It took a few moments to get used to a) the very light stick action, b) using a stick at all - all the other aircraft I fly have a control wheel c) flying a completely new aircraft type and d) doing so from the right hand seat - I don't often fly P2.

Well it didn't take long to get a reasonable level of proficiency and I obviously didn't scare David anywhere near enough because after 15 minutes or so of flying he left it to me to pole my way back to Kirkbride and land the beast. Not a bad landing either, even if I say so myself.

So I now have an enormous 20 minutes of Sportcruiser P1 time in my log book! I think I am going to enjoy flying G-JONL.

January in review

2010-02-01T16:39:00.001Z

The last fortnight of December and the first half of January were lost due to vast accumulations of snow and ice which had me more or less snowed in for over three weeks. Fortunately around the 13th a bit of a thaw set in and I was able to get to the airfield again for the first time in almost a month.

Getting the tail plane on was a major step forward. Even though it was hardly a big job, suddenly JONL started looking a bit more like an aeroplane. Enthusiasm to get on with the job despite having to work in the cold hangar was reignited.

The next major success was getting the instrument panels finally installed, fully connected up and working. The panel has probably been the biggest sub-project with hundreds of hours of designing, building, documenting, testing and debugging. It was great to have the whole thing finally installed and working.

And then, on the last day of January the wings were installed. Of all the work over the past ten months, this was certainly the most rewarding, for I now have a project that has, in the space of a few hours, turned into an aeroplane. Putting the wings on signals the beginning of the end of the construction phase. Before long it will be time to start on flight trials. It is exciting!

More about the wings

2010-02-01T16:24:00.002Z

After all the excitement of getting the wings mounted yesterday I was exhausted and definitely not in the right mood for a lot of writing. I went to bed early instead! So let's now add a bit of detail to yesterday's story.

Prior to the event I recruited five helpers, most of whom have helped me with the build before. We also had an Air Cadet from the local squadron where I am a civilian instructor and a Sportcruiser pilot based at Kirkbride. We were on site by 10:30 and after a bit of a briefing we set to work on the starboard wing. I had already made all the electrical and fuel connections so it should just be a case of sliding the wing into place, eh?

Well not quite. At first we couldn't see a way to get the rear spar correctly aligned. The book says that the wing spar goes forward of the fuselage connection but it seemed quite adamant that it wanted to go the other way round! So we tried that.

Well the book was right. Although it seems improbable as the wing is being offered up to the fuselage, it soon becomes obvious that the wing simply will not slide fully home with the rear spar connections the wrong way round. With about 2cm to go it was apparent that the fuselage rear spar mounting was under forward stress and that any attempts to force the wing further into the fuselage would result in some expensive damage!

Back to the drawing board.

I reasoned that the forward rake of the fuselage mount was to ensure that it butts up tight against the wing main spar and therefore it was perhaps raked a little too far forward. It turns out that this mounting is fairly springy in the forward/aft plane, so rather than attempt to ease the rake aft, we tried setting the wing rear spar against the fuselage mounting first, then pushing against it and swinging the wing round to engage the main spar.

With a bit of gentle persuasion, pushing on the leading surface of the wing route, the main spar slid smoothly into place. Once in place, it was very obvious that this was now the correct way round for the rear spar. The wing easily slid fully home and the rear spar mountings lined up perfectly.

Now to try and get the wing mounting pins in place. There is nothing to position the wing vertically other than when the spar bolts are inserted, so it is necessary to adjust the wing vertically until the holes line up. It turned out to be relatively easy to do this and the first mounting pin slid home into the upper middle bolt hole without too much ado. Getting the lower bolt holes to line up for the second pin was a bit more of a challenge and involved some gentle rocking of the wing tip. I found it useful to squint into the hole using a torch to see what the alignment error was and thereby give instructions to resolve the problem. The second pin slid home.

In principle, all the holes should now be lined up but the tolerances are so tight that it was still a bit of a struggle to get the bolts into place. More wing waggling was required, together with some gentle persuasion with a small hammer to get bolts into the four vacant holes. The two wing hanging pins were then removed and the last two bolts slid into place.

With the main spar bolts installed, the wing was, of course, self supporting but I still needed to get the rear spar bolt in place. I was a little surprised to find that the back of the wing was significantly (perhaps 6mm or so) lower than it needed to be. Eek! It turns out that the wing had drooped under its own weight and it was a relatively easy matter to lift it until the rear spar holes lined up and then insert the bolt.

Wing one installed! We checked the wing electrics (lighting and aileron trim) and all was well. Fuel supply and sender checks will have to wait until I am ready to put some petrol in the tank.

At this stage, my younger helpers were beguiled into accepting a short flight with Dave in his Icarus C42. It was a beautiful day, so I can't say I blame them!

Not a problem, for I had an hour's work to get all the connections sorted out for the port wing. This wing has the pitot and static pressure pipes, together with a vapour return to the fuel tank, so it's a bit more busy than the starboard wing. I set to work.

With the team back from aviating, we set to work mounting the port wing. With the experience of earlier in the day it was relatively painless and the wing was in place in short order. With both wings mounted, the call for lunch was unanimous so we headed off to the local pub for an enjoyable pint and Sunday roast.

Back at the airfield, we connected up the aileron control push rods and, joy of joys the ailerons worked... and in the correct sense. I will have to sort out the alignment, as there is a slight imbalance between the two ailerons but that is a job for another day.

We also fitted the wing fairings, temporarily held in place with cleckos. Finally, we fitted the flaps and checked out the operation using the electric flap controls. Again there is alignment work to do but in principle everything works just fine.

With time marching on and everything I had hoped for achieved, it was time to stop work for the day and head home, tired but happy that another major part of the project is completed. Once again my thanks to my helpers for turning out on a chilly January day to make it possible.

The wings are on!

2010-01-31T17:25:00.000Z

We fitted the wings today. I'll write more about it later and probably also post some video on YouTube. For now, suffice to say that once we'd worked out how to do it we had no real difficulties. Indeed we had both wings on by lunch time and so were able to go for a quick noggin and some much needed pub grub.

Many thanks to my helpers, Chris, Lizzy, Jim, Dave and Andrew. The picture shows Lizzy and Andrew sitting in the aircraft after the wings had been installed.

Final preparations

2010-01-29T23:55:00.001Z

I spent a while at the airport again today, preparing for the wing mounting gang to descend on Sunday. With the starboard wing already in position, it was a simple task to connect up the fuel pipe and electrics. To help protect the fuel pipe, I enclosed it in some flexible plastic electrical conduit. Although there are no sharp edges for the pipe to rub against, it still seemed worth while to protect this particularly inaccessible area as much as possible before the wings are installed. For the same reason, I carefully wire locked the fuel pipe connections.

Next, I shrink wrapped each of the electrical connectors. This is partly for protection, partly to ensure that they cannot come apart due to vibration and partly to try to keep moisture out of the electrics.

Finally, I fitted the rubber sealing strip that runs along the underside of the wing, sealing it to the fuselage. Apparently this has quite a profound effect on stall performance. Slightly oddly, this seal is only applied to the underside of the wing, presumably because this is the high pressure area.

The rest of the day was spent with the somewhat fiddly task of fitting the Camloc fasteners into the cowling. The fasteners are held in place by a steel circlip, which is the very devil of a job to click into place. After a while I found a moderately effective method but nevertheless I have several broken nails from the experience. It must be said though that the aircraft does look rather swish with the cowling in place - it's a while since I've seen them fitted.

Preparing to mount the wings

2010-01-23T23:51:00.000Z

In preparation for mounting the wings, I spent half a day at Kirkbride today generally faffing around and checking things out. Firstly, I completed the aileron trim wiring and attached the wing tip navigation/strobe lighting units to both wings. I also fitted the aileron control rod fairing and inspection hatch covers.

With the assistance of one of the gyrocopter pilots, we set the starboard wing on trestles adjacent to the fuselage. I was then able to connect up all the electrical services (navigation lights, strobe lights, aileron trim and fuel level sensor). The lighting and fuel systems worked perfectly first time but the aileron trim needed a little fiddling with, due to a small error in the circuit diagrams. easily enough to troubleshoot and fix, but a little annoying nevertheless.

Next, using my digital vernier calliper I carefully measured the width of the slot that the wing main spar fits into on the fuselage. It was no surprise to find that the paint made the spar too thick, so I carefully rubbed it down using 400-grade wet and dry until there was just a very thin coat of paint remaining. I hope that this will be sufficient for the wing to fit snugly, as I really would prefer not to have to take the paint all the way back to bare metal, with inevitable potential for corrosion.

Finally, I fitted the Dzus fasteners to the wing lockers, together with nylon washers, which will help to prevent the paint from becoming scratched when the lockers are opened and closed. A further nylon washer on the underside stops the fastener from falling out when the wing locker door is open.

Apart from joining the fuel pipes, the starboard wing is now all ready for installation. I need to obtain a smaller trestle to support the inboard end of the wing, as the one I am using is too tall. I think a plastic saw-horse will be pretty well the perfect height (about 24 inches), so a visit to the local DIY emporia is called for before next weekend!

Finishing the cockpit

2010-01-22T22:22:00.000Z

Today I was able to spend a while at Kirkbride working on the cockpit, in preparation for fitting the wings.

Firstly I at last finished the instrument panels and avionics. I had a number of minor wiring problems to fix:

Engine management system alarm light
Power to the magnetic compass for lighting
Rewiring the power and RS232 data stream from the GPS to the EMS
Shortening and properly terminating the various coaxial leads from antennas to the avionics
Generally tidying up all the wires and routing them to be out of view as much as possible

These tasks took a surprising amount of time but the end result is a completely finished and fully functional instrument panel.

Next I turned my attention to the harnesses. The Sportcruiser has proper four point harnesses and the fuselage attachment points are difficult to get to when the wings are installed, so it made sense to install these today. The task turned out to be fairly simple and it's surprising just how adding the harnesses made the cockpit look more complete.

The list of tasks to be completed before I can fit the wings is slowly but surely getting shorter!

Tidying up loose ends

2010-01-16T20:58:00.000Z

I was able to spend a few more hours at Kirkbride today, sorting out various minor jobs prior to the all-important wing mounting ceremony.

Firstly, I fixed the slightly embarrassing problem with the trim indicators that I discovered last night. It turned out to be a simple wiring error - the circuit diagrams were correct but I didn't wire the display correctly. A simple matter to fix and it took longer to test than it did to redo the wiring.

I also completed the installation of the stall warning sounder. This is a loud piezo-electric sounder, actuated by a sensitive micro-switch on the port wing leading edge, which is actuated when the airflow breaks up due to excessive angle of attack (the cause of a stall). The sounder is mounted behind the instrument panel and it's very loud indeed! I don't think there'll be any difficulty hearing it, even when wearing noise cancelling headphones.

With that small job completed I was able to tidy up the rats nest of wiring somewhat, in preparation for finally mounting the three instrument panels.

Slowly but surely I'm clearing off all the jobs that can be completed prior to the wings going. I'm making tentative plans to have a wing mounting party towards the end of January.

Finishing the tail plane

2010-01-15T23:45:00.013Z

I was able to spend a good few hours working on JONL today and used the time to finish off the tail plane. This is probably the last big job before fitting the wings, so I'm particularly pleased to see it completed. As expected (see earlier entry) I had to remove the horizontal stabiliser to fit the elevator trim wiring but that was straightforward enough. Like so many aspects of this build, when you've worked out how to do a job and done it once it is much much easier the second time around.

The trim cable was reasonably easy to fit. It is threaded through the stabiliser so that it pops out of the rear, adjacent to a hole in the elevator. A bit of fiddling soon had it routed correctly and, because it goes through lightening holes which have no grommets, I decided to put plastic pipe over the cable to reduce the risk of chafing. I then refitted the horizontal stabiliser and dressed the trim wiring before bolting everything firmly in place.

Next, I fitted the elevator. This turned out to be one of those truly awkward jobs, with very little room to work in and bolts that seemed particularly reluctant to slide home. In the end I managed to get all three bolts secured but not without a certain amount of cursing!

With the elevator fitted, I could now complete the trim wiring and test the elevator trim system end-to-end. To do this, I had to fit the P1 and P2 instrument panels in order to get power to the circuitry. The trim works OK but unfortunately I've messed up the wiring of the display panel because elevator movement shows on the aileron display instead of the one for the elevator! Fortunately that is easily fixed but I will also need to check on my documentation to see whether the error is there or in my implementation.

Finally, I connected up the elevator control rod and checked operation back to the cockpit. The job was then completed by fitting the fibreglass tail cone and the fairings around the horizontal stabiliser root.

So, a small electrical problem to sort out and, of course, I have to check the elevator control range but that is a job for later. Otherwise the tail plane section of JONL is now completed. Soon, very soon, it will be time to fit the wings!

Something is happening!

2010-01-13T11:41:00.011Z

Hoorah! I was finally able to get to the airport and do a little work on JONL yesterday. With only a couple of hours available, I spent a bit of time familiarising myself with where I'd left off before Christmas and thinking about what I could usefully do with the available time.

In the end, I decided I'd try fitting the horizontal stabiliser. It's a tight fit onto a pair of steel locator pins set firmly in the rear fuselage section. Once in place (which takes a fair bit of pushing and shoving!) a couple of bolts hold it locked in place. The wiring for the elevator trim also passes through the horizontal stabiliser, en-route to the elevator. I didn't install that, although perhaps I ought to have done! I think I should be able to get the wire in without removing the stabiliser again.

Another tricky aspect of fitting the horizontal stabiliser is that there really isn't much clearance between the top of the stabiliser and the base of the rudder. It's altogether too easy to scratch the paintwork, or worse, dent the metal skin of the stabiliser. Moving the rudder to full deflection helps but it's still a bit of a squeeze.

Once the stabiliser was in place, I set the elevator alongside it on a pair of trestles to see how best to go about fixing it. Everything is quite close tolerance around this area, so care is needed to avoid bashing bits of elevator against the stabiliser. I'll need to sort out the elevator trim wiring too, before I can attach the elevator to the horizontal stabiliser.

So progress, albeit not a great deal. I hope to be able to get to the airport again on Friday.

Nothing is happening

2010-01-07T22:02:00.010Z

Nothing at all. In fact I am on other (non aviation) projects at the moment, waiting for this chilly weather to break. Even if I could easily get around - and that is far from certain, the roads around here remain treacherous - the hangar is far too cold for working in at the moment.

The picture shows the lane up to my home, which is at the top of the hill. It's not obvious from the photo but the bit by the oak tree on the right is really quite steep. Several vehicles have come to grief there recently!

There's no point cluttering up the Blog with nil progress reports, so my next post will be when there is something to report.

I'm staying put. I may be some time!

December in review

2009-12-31T23:00:00.002Z

A disappointing lack of progress during December. The weather is to blame - it has been dire. We've had snow on the ground since the 20th and the temperature has hardly been above freezing since the middle of the month. Travel is difficult as I live on top of a steep hill and the road is never treated, so it's like an ice rink. But, truth be said, it has been much too cold since mid December to spend significant time in the hanger-cum-workshop.

Some progress was made. I more or less finished the instrumentation and that's just waiting to be finally installed. I also fitted the BRS and the instrument coaming, ready for the instrument panels. A fair amount of work has also been done on the documentation.

I'm working on other things while this cold weather persists. I have a large software project relating to my amateur radio hobby that I'm getting my teeth into and that means hours sat in front of computer screens trying to out-logic the machine. At least it is warm in the house!

Let's hope the weather improves soon and I can resume working on G-JONL.

A happy new year to my Blog followers.

Season's greetings

2009-12-25T00:00:00.004Z

A very merry Christmas and happy new year to all my Blog readers out there in cyberspace!

I know you're there, because although most of you post very little here on the Blog, I do get the occasional e-mail and comments on the Sportcruiser reflector. Please don't be shy - I welcome comments here and will always try to reply to them where appropriate.

2010 should be the year that G-JONL flies. I look forward to sharing the experience with you all!

Document library updated

2009-12-24T16:51:00.004Z

I've updated the document library with all the latest documents. There are no new documents as yet, only updates to existing files.

There are many changes to the electric circuits and associated schedules and I think I should be getting fairly close to the final documentation set here, as the instrument panel is all but finished.

I've substantially updated the POH but this is still very much a work in progress and will be until the aircraft build is completed, weight & balance schedules have been prepared and so on.

Wing mounting pins

2009-12-21T16:58:00.002Z

This evening, just as it was getting dark, Postie arrived bearing, inter alia, a pair of wing mounting pins, previously believed to be lost in a snow drift. I have to say I was quite surprised that Royal Mail delivered today - the roads are quite treacherous, as I discovered myself when I ventured out in search of milk and, importantly, supplies of wine for the festive period.

Anyway, another part of the project slots into place and I can now get on with mounting the wings on G-JONL when the weather improves a little. Many thanks to Graham Smith, the former agent for Sportcruiser in the UK, for lending me his wing pins. Graham's support has been excellent throughout the project.

It's too cold...

2009-12-19T13:23:00.006Z

... to be messing around in an unheated hangar on a windswept airfield in Cumbria! Last night the temperature at home dropped to -7°C and it's not got above freezing today, with only a couple of hours of daylight left. It's alleged that we shall have snow tomorrow, which will make the place look pretty but do little for any prospects of heading to the airport!

So I am stuck at home, tidying up odd bits of documentation and generally pottering around. I'm also waiting for a set of wing hanging pins to arrive, courtesy of Royal Mail, so that's a half way decent excuse for staying at home. I suspect that this cold snap is going to continue until after Christmas, so it looks like it'll be the new year before the wings are finally attached.

Brrrrrr!!!!

Update: 21-Dec-09 at 14:30

Sure enough the snow arrived and very pretty it is too. So far we've got about 12cm of the stuff chez tWF but there's more to come, looking at the weather radar. I cannot recall having substantial snow this early in the winter season. Certainly not in the nine years since I moved to Cumbria. So much for global warming!

It looks like this cold weather is set to hang around for a few days yet, so it'll be after Christmas before I can make any further progress with the build. The wing hanging pins haven't arrived either... I suppose they are stuck in a snow drift somewhere.

Update 24-Dec-09 at 14:30

Well we still have the better part of a foot of snow here at tWF Towers so I'm not going anywhere. The next few days are occupied with seasonal festivities, so it's probably going to be 2010 before I can get up to the airfield again. Not to worry... this never was a project that had to be completed in a specific time scale and I reckon I should still be game on for flying by Easter.

Meanwhile, we've got snow on Christmas day to look forward to. I think that may be a first for me. I shall enjoy looking at it from the warmth of my living room with a glass of hot mulled wine in hand.

Update: 02-Jan-2010

Yay! A new decade but it just ain't going away, this snow. We had another couple of inches of the stuff last night, just as I was starting to think the local, untreated roads might become passable again soon. I have now, officially, had enough of snow, thank you.

Today I spent an interesting hour digging my neighbour's car out of the side of the road where he'd slithered diagonally across the road and into the hedge. Even with a lot of shovelling and pushing, we couldn't get his car up the hill past my place. Eventually one of the local farmers came by in his tractor and that got us moving all right!

So I guess I'm still going nowhere for the time being. The weather forecast is dire for at least the next week. At this rate I'm going to lose a whole month to the weather. And that after all the problems with flooding in November.

Frustrating!

Fitting the coaming

2009-12-16T18:06:00.004Z

Although I've temporarily fitted the instrument coaming (the glare shield, for our American cousins) on many occasions already, yesterday I finally screwed it into place with some 25 screws. It certainly isn't going anywhere now! On the other hand, if I need to remove it, for example to access the ballistic recovery system parachute or to provide easier access to the firewall area, then it is just a matter of unscrewing all those screws again!

Before I could fit the coaming, I needed to install the magnetic compass and GPS antenna, both of which sit on top of the coaming. This involved wiring - power for the compass illumination and the coaxial lead for the GPS antenna - together with some careful hole drilling. Another place where measure twice drill once was the order for the day.

It turned out to be a bit of a challenge fitting the coaming. Firstly, the leather covering does not drill well. The leather tends to close up once the drill is removed, making it difficult to get the mounting screws through. In the end I cut away the leather around each hole using a sharp Stanley knife and that fixed that problem. It also turned out that some of the pre-drilled holes didn't line up with their partners in the canopy surround, so some judicious filing was needed to "move" the hole slightly in the coaming.

With those problems solved, it was a comparatively simple exercise to finally fit the coaming. I wonder how long it will be before I have to take it out again?

Today, back at home, I completed the alarm LEDs wiring. This little bit of electronics comprises a pair of LEDs (Unsafe and EMS alarm), a couple of resistors and a bunch of diodes. I built the whole ensemble on a small piece of Veroboard, which is held in place behind the instrument panel by the LEDs themselves, together with a small plastic screw to stiffen the mounting.

A few tests show that it's all working (there isn't much that can go wrong really) and so that is another part of the instrumentation complete. Indeed, I now only have two or three minor bits of wiring to do and all the instrumentation will be completed. I hope to get up to the airport on Saturday to finish the job and then I'll be onto the flying surfaces. Deep joy!

Yet more instrumentation

2009-12-12T11:13:00.004Z

There's no doubting it, the instrument panels are a big part of the project. I have been continually surprised at a) how complex it all is (probably largely my fault!) and b) how long it takes to do seemingly straightforward bits of wiring.

Well things are rapidly heading to a conclusion now. Over the last few days I've been systematically working away at the remaining jobs and there is now very little that has not been completed, tested and deemed (by me at least) to be satisfactory. I've also completed end-to-end testing of most systems, including the avionics, flying and engine instruments. Although most of these subsystems had been tested before, in isolation, this is the first time I've been able to fit everything together and check out the whole lot.

There have been a few issues to resolve. I've decided that I hate modern BNC plugs (used for the antenna connections) with a quite unreasonable vengeance. They are notoriously difficult to make a good reliable connection with. It is increasingly difficult to procure the altogether better (but more costly) plugs that have a nice ferrule for the coax outer. I must try harder, for I have had to remake two connections so far due to the inner conductor not making contact with its mate on the radio socket and, instead, trying to short out against the outer. I've also had to fix a short circuit that was popping one of the contact breakers. That turned out to be a power wire that had worked loose and was making contact with the radio chassis.

Anyway, with the BRS installed and the instrument wiring all but finished, I am very close indeed to finishing off the cockpit, so my attentions will soon be turning to the wings and tailplane. In preparation for which, we yesterday rearranged the hangar somewhat to give me a bit more room. Wings on by Christmas? Perhaps not, but it's getting close now.

BRS installed

2009-12-12T10:18:00.006Z

In hopeful anticipation of approvals in the near future, I decided to complete the installation of my Ballistic Recovery System. Actually, as this is a factory fitted option, it was only really necessary to reinstall it.

I was particularly keen to ensure that the BRS installation does not interfere with the avionics stack. Things are a bit tight in there but it turns out that there is enough space - just. The BRS rocket must have unimpeded egress, straight up through a frangible cover on the fuselage, immediately aft of the firewall. The rocket then pulls out a small drove 'chute, which in turn pulls out the much larger main canopy. The main canopy is attached to a 10ft bridle, which in turn pulls out the four support bridles, one in each corner of the cockpit, in effect.

All this paraphernalia has to be able to exit through the hole created by the rocket knocking out the frangible cover! In practice, once the drove parachute is out, nothing much is going to stop remainder of the system deploying, as it is now being pulled with the weight of the aircraft plus any deceleration forces. The critical considerations therefore are to get the rocket and drove 'chute out unimpeded and then make sure that nothing structural can get in the way of the remainder of the system deployment.

It turns out that this is all relatively easy to assure. The rocket pulls directly on a short steel lanyard, which in turn starts pulling the parachutes out of the pack, which is alongside. Once the parachutes are out, all the bridles just pull through (they are fixed, zig-zag folded, alongside the parachute pack. I don't doubt that in the process of pulling through a few electrical wires would be damaged but that is as nothing compared to what happens next!

As the main bridles deploy, the two rear support cables have to pull through the canopy surround from the front of the canopy right to the back so that the rear cables and bridles can rise vertically to the parachute. If this were not to happen then the parachute would be holding up the front of the aircraft only, so it would descend tail down.

So the upshot of all this is that substantial damage, probably sufficient to write the aircraft off, is done even before it reaches terra firma. The BRS then is a facility of absolute last resort, for use if the aircraft has been fatally damaged and is fundamentally incapable of flying. It's not for use just because the engine has stopped!

That said, I was presented with an interesting conundrum on this very point by one of the guys at the airport yesterday. What about if the engine fails over water and there is clearly no way to make it to land. Pull the parachute? My initial response (which probably still remains after reflection) is that one would not. But conversely, a ditching is virtually certain to result in a write off and with the fixed undercarriage there is a considerable risk of flipping the aircraft on its back during a normal landing, making escape from the aircraft difficult if not impossible. At least the parachute ought to bring the aircraft down the right way up. Hmmmm....!

BRS

2009-12-08T10:12:00.004Z

One of the things that has concerned me for some time is the ballistic recovery system (BRS) that came with my kit. It was the first and may still be the only kit in the UK with this option, with the result that approvals have not been granted. In LAA-speak, the option is not included in the Type Acceptance Data Sheet (TADS).

This has been giving me something of a headache as without the approvals the BRS cannot be fitted but by its nature its components cannot be entirely removed from the fuselage either. Some months ago I started applying pressure to have the matter addressed, both to the LAA and to the new importers. It seems that at last progress is being made. As a result, I decided, for the time being, to proceed with the expectation that this factory fitted option will be accepted and written into the TADS in time for my flight trials programme.

Over the past couple of days I've been working towards that goal. Firstly, I completed the mounting system for the coaming, using rivnuts and demonstrated that the coaming can be easily installed and removed. This is a major advantage, in particular because it makes access to the BRS components so much easier.

I took lots of photographs of the mounting system for the BRS, as I am sure these will be required by the LAA. The BRS has long parachute bridles that have to be folded, zig-zag fashion and secured to the fuselage, just aft of the firewall. It's a little fiddly getting these arranged in such a way that they will correctly deploy in the event that the BRS is activated.

One problem is the proximity of the avionics stack, which protrudes sufficiently far forward that it gets rather close to the parachute mounting tray. An official solution is at hand fortunately, which permits a small section of the tray to be cut away. This I have done and there is now good clearance all round.

I'm now almost ready to install the BRS rocket and parachute assembly. I may just wait a day or so to see whether the promised progress actually materialises!

More instrument panel work

2009-12-04T23:45:00.003Z

I've had a couple of very productive days at the airport interconnecting all the various instrument panel electrical services. Slowly but surely the rats nest of wiring that has been adorning the central console and panels area on the fuselage is getting married up to similar spaghetti on the panels themselves. This sounds like a recipe for even more of a mess but in fact the contrary is true - as each service is integrated, straggling wires are becoming tidier and fewer in number.

Yesterday I did a lot of the preparation work, completing the wiring of the P1 and P2 panels and looming everything together to make it tidy. Today I integrated the two panels firstly with each other and secondly, with the fuselage wiring. One by one the various services have been connected up and by the time I left the airfield this evening, almost all the electrical systems were operational.

I also started integrating the already completed avionics panel into the instrument cluster. Most of this has been tested before and the principal additional work was to organise power to the avionics via the panel switches and contact breakers. That work is not yet completed but an hour or two tomorrow should do the trick.

There are still a few ancillary services to integrate, including power to the stall warner, the landing light wiring and the alternator control circuitry. And I need to implement the emergency power supply system that I discussed a few days ago. None of these are big jobs, so I think there's a good chance that I'll finish the instrumentation tomorrow. Then it'll time to get the engine ready for starting!

Instrument panels & coaming

2009-12-02T23:12:00.006Z

At last I was able to spend some time at the airport today.

I completed the other instrument panel trestle so now I can put the P1 and P2 panels in place without having to install the coaming (the glare shield to any Americans that may be reading). This will make it much easier to complete the wiring, of which there is lots.

I decided to have a go at fixing the coaming and instrument panels, in order to check out whether there are any problems. Normally the coaming is attached to the fuselage with about 35 rivets but the problem with that is that once fitted it is very difficult to remove, should the need arise in the future. So I decided to experiment with rivnuts instead. These are, effectively, threaded blind rivets. They are installed like a pop rivet but instead of a mandrel a screw thread is used to pull the rivnut. Once the rivnut is pulled, the tool is unscrewed and from then on an ordinary screw can be used.

It turns out to be a bit fiddly to get the coaming all aligned so that the screws can be inserted but otherwise the rivnuts work just fine. Even with only half a dozen installed the coaming is very secure. This has got me thinking that I could leave one or two holes on each side without a rivnut and it would then be quite easy to use some cleckos to position the coaming ready to screw in place. I'll need to experiment with that idea some more.

With the coaming in place, I was then able to install the three instrument panels - P1, Avionics and P2. This is the first time all panels and all instruments have been installed and I have to say I think it looks rather good! Particularly pleasing is that there are no show stoppers. Everything fits together nicely and there should be plenty of room for all the cabling and so on. It will still be much easier to do the cabling without the coaming in place though, so the trestles will definitely see some use over the next few days.

Finally, with not much time left before I had to leave the airport, I decided it was about time to start constructing the propeller. The three-bladed prop comes with each blade as a separate unit and a big cast aluminium boss into which the blades fit. Eventually I will have to align the blades to precisely the same pitch (approximately 13°) but that is a job for later, when I've worked out how to do it! For the time being it was sufficient to mount the blades and then attach the prop to the engine.

Hopefully I should be able to spend the next few days working on the build project and start making some serious progress at last.

November in review

2009-11-30T16:21:00.003Z

Not a very productive month really.

A combination of truly awful weather and other commitments has meant that I've made far less progress than I had hoped for in November. There is no doubt that the 74 mile round trip to the airfield is a limiting factor, especially when the weather is bad but there really is no alternative - it's the nearest airfield with a long enough runway for meaningful flight trials and with suitable hangar space. Although the hangar has power and lighting, it's also true that the short days are limiting progress, as much as anything else because of the desire to avoid lots of travelling in the dark.

Not all is gloom and doom however. The hydraulics were completed and quite a bit of progress was made on the instrument panels. The seats were installed, various avionics problems were resolved and I was finally able to sort out the sticking rudder pedals problem.

Looking forward, I think the challenge is to complete the instrumentation during December. Then in the new year we'll be able to fit the wings and get the engine running. Could still be flying by Easter!

Emergency power

2009-11-24T17:28:00.002Z

A Blog reader recently observed that the power circuitry to the flight instruments represented a single point of failure that would result in the loss of both roll indicators. When I came to think about it, the same argument applied to the radio communications system, which is arguably also an essential service.

Today, with the weather being, yet again, diabolical, I decided to stay at home and think about how best to provide some resilience. The problem is that there are several links along the way from battery to instrument/radio. Failure of any one of these links would result in the failure of that subsystem. Ouch!

In the end, I've decided to install a simple two pole emergency power switch, which takes power directly from the battery, via a fuse of course - I must still provide some protection. The switch applies this power to the flight instruments via one pole and to COM 1 via the other, bypassing the master solenoid, panel switches, relays, contact breakers and associated wiring. In this emergency circuit, there are virtually no points of failure.

Of course, by implementing this new circuitry, I am providing another route from the battery to some of the aircraft's systems and the master switch no longer acts as a total isolator. If the emergency power switch were to be left on with the engine stopped then the battery would eventually go flat. There's no easy way to fix this problem, other than to arrange the power take-off from the load side of the solenoid and accept the risk of the master solenoid failing.

I think I've decided to go straight to the battery in order to provide the most secure supply possible. I'll just have to overcome the flat battery risk by including a step in the shut down procedure to ensure that the emergency power switch hasn't been left on. I might also make it so the emergency switch powers the strobes or the landing light - that would make it more difficult to inadvertently walk away from the aircraft without noticing that something is amiss.

I need to decide where to physically locate this emergency power switch. Obviously not on the instrument panels - they are already cut and silk screened and there really isn't space, nor is it a good idea, in my opinion. Most likely I'll put it on the P1 side panel of the centre console. That way it is easily accessible in flight but is out of the way and unlikely to be inadvertently toggled. Next time I can get to Kirkbride it's something else to check out.

Instrument panel trestles

2009-11-24T10:33:00.006Z

I had a go at making a trestle to support the P1 panel in the correct position without having to attach the coaming. The trestle sits on the fuselage floor and can be moved forward and aft slightly, to allow for easier access to the rear of the instrument panels.

I'm more of a metal basher than a woodworker, so the end result, whilst functional isn't especially well engineered. I can live with that, as the trestles will only be needed while I complete the panel wiring. Having proved the methodology on the P1 side, I now need another trip to B&Q - due to a miscalculation of the amount of wood required - then I'll be able to make the P2 trestle. There is no need for a trestle to support the avionics panel, as the centre console provides all the support that is needed.

I'm a little surprised that none of the other Sportcruiser builders seem to have come up with this solution. Maybe there is some dastardly defect in the idea that I will discover in a day or two? Or perhaps it's just that my panels are more complex than most and so the need for the trestles is self inflicted!

It's rotten weather again up here in Cumbria so I'm rather disinclined to make the pilgrimage to Kirkbride today. I'm away for a few days later this week, so I suspect it'll be next week before I can make further progress.

Wiring up the instrument panels

2009-11-21T21:57:00.004Z

With the awful weather and floods everywhere, I've not really been enthused to attempt the 74 mile round trip to Kirkbride, so I've spent a couple of days at home, wiring up the instrument panels.

The majority of the wiring is just power cables. With switches on the P1 panel and circuit breakers for each subsystem on the P2 panel there is quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing of wires. As I am keen to be able to separately remove each panel, this has given rise to rather more connectors than I am entirely happy with. Hopefully there won't be any reliability problems!

I've also installed the static pressure air pipes. Static pressure is used by four instruments:

Altimeter
Vertical speed Indicator
Mode-C altitude encoder
Air speed indicator (this instrument also uses pitot pressure)

We're only dealing with what is, effectively, normal air pressure, although it is usual for the cabin to be slightly higher in pressure than the outside air (due to ram air effects), so a separate static pressure source is taken from outside.

Soon I'll be at the stage where I need to marry up the panel wiring and the multitude of wires that converge on the instrument panels from all corners of the fuselage and from the engine compartment.

This produces something of a problem, as there is nothing to physically support the panels until the instrument coaming is installed but I can't really install the coaming until I have finished the bulk of the interconnection work. So I'm planning to build a pair of trestles out of wood, which will sit in the foot-well on each side of the centre console and provide a solid table to lay the panels on. This should also make it a lot easier to complete the installation, when the time comes to screw the panels to the coaming.

I feel a trip to B&Q coming on tomorrow!

Instrumentation again

2009-11-16T21:59:00.004Z

With the hydraulics out of the way, it is time at last to focus on the instrumentation.

First I mounted the fuel selector valve to the centre console panel and then fixed the panel roughly in place. I could then add the flap control switch and position indicator. It was good to connect that up to some power and see that the flap server and indicator system still works OK. I even managed to get the wiring the right way round first time, so that flaps up was with the switch up and showed up on the indicator. The wonders of a comprehensive documentation system!

Next I installed the home-brew audio panel above the flap controls. The audio panel lets the pilot select which radio(s) he is listening to and which one is used for transmission. There are commercial units available but they all have far too many functions for my little Sportcruiser and, more to the point, are too big to fit in the available space. It is not usual to need to fit an audio panel in such a small aircraft!

Finally I mounted the intercom at the top of the centre panel and connected it up to the headsets, power and PTT lines from the control sticks. It all worked! I am particularly pleased with the way the centre console panel has worked out. It was a bit of a challenge to work out the best layout but I think the result looks very neat and professional.

Next I turned my attention to the P1 instrument panel. I mounted all the instruments and switches and was delighted with the appearance of the completed panel. In particular, I am pleased that I went for small rocker switches, which I think are far more in keeping with the modern look of the aircraft than the old fashioned toggle switches that are more usually fitted. I also fitted the avionics into the centre panel and did a little work on the P2 panel (not pictured) as well. No time today to wire everything up - that's a job to do at home over the next week or two.