March 2011.
Not flown yet, good intent yesterday Monday went to the airfield, Sunny, Cold, Windy
Thought I'll see how it goes so took out my Doodlebug which I have been working on (more detail in a bit).
Fitted the tank which had old fuel within and after pulling the starter for a while without success I realised it was not switched on. OK so I did the necessary and away it went. After a short warm up it stopped and would not start again. Waited a while and the same happened after which there was a lot of fuel around.
Made sure that the tank was not pressurized, I have a one way valve on the tank vent which means that it can be pressurized. I found no problem.
Left things for a while and had a cupa then returned to try again. Appeared to be OK so left running for a while on tick over noticed puffs of blue smoke starting to issue from exhast so reved up until smoke disapeared. Left on tick over again, smoke started again until engine stopped.
Wind was strongish with strong gusts,not very inviting for flight and together with engine problems decided to pack up.
During the past months I have been making an SSDR trike. It is based upon the French Pulma 2000 but with wire braces all round in place of struts as per original Pulma 2000 design. I would like to use a Cors Air Black Devil engine and a French Ellipse Fuji 16 wing reinforced for the Pulma trike at the moment I have my sites on two a almost new Fuji at 1950Euro and an older one at 1000Euro. The Black Devil is £1650 + P&P direct from JVC Italia, I dont know what the P&P cost is yet but it seems better than the price in England of £2300
So there is the reason for the working on the Doodlebug, to sell and get the required cash.
I don't know if I will be moving on to Microlights or selling up or making a DIY FLP Unit as yet. Watch this space
About Me
- john m
- Hooked on flying, it started making Balsa wood flying models which I never completed. In my teens I bought a K K Pirate high wing monoplane kit and ED Bee engine. I only dreamed of flying as I lost myself in building self designed flying models, I imagined I was within the workshop building a full size aircraft solving full size problems. This feeling continued into the flights of these models, I never dreamed that one day I would actualy fly my own aircraft. How lucky to live at a time when it is posible to purchase and fly your own aircraft for so little cost. It was around mid 80s when I saw just below cloud base a hang glider, I stopped my car to watch and the pilot swooped so elagantly, popped out his legs to land like a butterfly, soon the goal field had about a dozen or more gliders in it. Until then like much of the public I thought Hang Gliders were stearable parachutes you jumped off a hill and landed at the bottom. I took up the challenge of the sport in 1990. Age began to catch up with me I found it difficult to climb the hill with 35Kg of glider but luckily power hang gliding came to the rescue in 1999