Clear of Cloud

My Smiley Luscombe

Well after nearly two years of restoration, what is now my aeroplane is almost ready.  She's been fully rebuilt by a real craftsman.  This is the third Luscombe Pete has rebuilt and as a result of all that work he's has become a technical guru on the type.  One of the great things about Pete is that not only is he skilled as an engineer but he has a sympathetic approach to the look of these aeroplanes - it doesn't have to be stock but it does have to look right - and she really looks right!

My Luscombe started life as a Luscombe 8a but was subsequently converted to an 8e model.  She's a little unusual in that she's a rag-wing Luscombe.  They were built with both rag- and metal wings but mostly you seem to see the metal wing versions.  There doesn't appear to any difference in the way the two different wings fly - though it is reckoned that the rag-wings are 50lbs lighter than their aluminium counterparts.  When it comes to aeroplanes, lighter is better.

Tucked under that cheeky cowling is a 100hp Continetal, which I hope will see me tearing around the country at a dizzying 85 knots. Does the lack of speed bother me?  No way, it just means more time in the air for every journey and more time in the air is what it's all about.

While the aeroplane itself is finished there's still plenty more to do. We're waiting for the permit to test. Once (if) that comes through Pete will do the test flying.  After that I need to do my training on her. That could take some time - it takes me a while to learn new motor skills but I really do have to learn those taildragger dance moves. I know I own her but right now I feel more like a guardian and the last thing I want to do is to bend this beautiful aeroplane.

She is a beautiful, smiley and aeroplane and above all she's mine.

[Update: Permit to Test just came through the post today - first flight on Monday hopefully !]

I've Bought an Engine

.... to be attached to an aeroplane that I'm buying.  Actually, that's misleading.  I've put a deposit on an engine to be attached to restoration project I'm buying. 

Yes, I know, I know, I haven't got my licence yet.  Yes, I know that there are any number of reason why this seems like a daft idea but if you get past the entirely accurate notion that you cannot justify the expense of owning an aeroplane, then there is, and I use this term loosely, a logic in what I'm doing.  I may live to have those words fed back to me atop some humble pie but we only live once and I had to buy my first aeroplane sometime.

For those interested in the details: it's a rebuilt Continental 0-200 whose 4 cylinders and 100 horses should be puttering and pulling a (my) Luscombe 8e through the skies sometime next year.

Weekend Workshopping

On Saturday monring I met up with a few guys who operate a vintage aircraft over in the West of Ireland.  A very pleasant morning I spent with them too.  Their aeroplanes were in various states of dismantlement.  One had and engine off its mounts for an overhaul while the other ship’s control services were receiving some TLC.  I’d met with them a few times before so there was a good friendly welcome, a mug of tea and a discussion about Minister Eamon O’Cuiv’s announcement last week for funding for an airport in Clifden.  Conversation didn’t drag on though and it was quickly back to work.  Asked if I was any good with a spanner all I could say was “what do you need done?”

So there I was, quarter-inch drive in one hand, the other wedged  through a small access panel behind the firewall with a 7mm spanner trying to hold a nut. It was a small task- removing some oil lines, but it was my first bit of aircaft maintenance and it was fun.  Vintage aeroplanes in a shed, a group of like minded enthusiasts, getting stuck in and learning, under experineced eys, how to work on aeroplanes – what more could I ask for on a Saturday morning?  There were even breakfast rolls!  It was enough to leave me grinning for the rest of the weekend.

I like to think that it was a two way thing too.  Sure, getting the oil lines off wasn’t at all a difficult task, but it was fiddly and a little time consuming.  So  while I got some experience, the owner got an extra fifteen minutes to get started on making up the new lines.  It wasn’t all old-fashioned engineering – compared to the others in the hangar, I appeared to be technology geek, so when it came time to figure out the borrowed GPS, I was able sort it out quickly.  It seems to me that engineering hands are not all that fond of multitudinous buttons.

Maybe I’m just lucky, but it seems to me that the aviation community is just full of people more than happy to share there knowledge and experience.  I find that so reassuring.  I’m never going to be a commercial pilot but I know there is a world of aviation away flying big metal and I want to learn as much of it as I can.  That there are people like the guys on the vintage scene, so generous with their experience, means that there is some hope that I will learn enough to call myself an aviator.

Do I, don't I

For as long I can remember I've wanted to fly.  It seems for just as long I've dreamt of owning my own aeroplane.  My own little machine.  For the last 5 years I've been saving hard and it was difficult because we just bought a house at the same time as I started saving.  All a long the motivation had been aviation - and the promise of free money from the government.  That savings plan has matured now and there a serious risk of the money incinerating my pocket.

For a long time I've also harboured notions of building my own plane and I still do.  But lots of reading and sensible encouragement from Herself and others has me questioning those notions.  I do believe that I'd like to build a plane, to be able to look back and say "see that aeroplane, I built that".  I've listened to others though and I now I know; I want to fly more than I want to build.  With that question answered honestly, my mind has turned to ownership.

Ideally, I'd like to own something like an Vans RV - something quick, purposeful with a useful range.  I haven't saved that much yet.  Shared ownership is, financially, the way to go. It give a bigger budget for a better plan and it dilutes the fixed cost of owning a 'plane; hangarage and insurance  There's a catch.  I'm relatively new to this flying game - from the perspective of the established fliers.  I'm not necessarily the sort of guy that long-in-the aviators are immediately going to trust in a group.  From a learning perspective, that sort of group would be perfect for me.  At the same time, I'm clued-in enough to know that me setting up a group with people you don't know well is fraught with dangers.  Biggest of all I don't know that many pilots well enough to share bills with.  So right now I'm sort of snookered.

The other alternative that I'm playing with is back in the direction of plan A.  A group, as one sage instructor put it, made up of me, myself and I.  That plan sees me not building but going out and buying a cheap, maybe old, aeroplane on my own.  I was thinking Luscombe 8, the aforementioned instructor suggested Cessna 150.  If I go down the solo route, I'm foregoing the mentoring that a group may give, I'll have to source hangarage and insurance on my own and I'll have to foot all of the bills.  It's all a bit daunting - and yet somehow continued renting after I get the PPL just doesn't appeal.

I think I need to think a bit more.

Tecnam Sierra Retractable

I browsed over the Tecnam site for the umpteenth time last night .... mmm lovely airplanes.

It seems they've just launched the "Ultralight" of their existing P2002-JR.  As far as I can follow the, JR designation means that it's JAR Certified (J) and retractable undercarriage (R). The non-certified aircraft get names instead of the JR or JF designator.  So for example

P2002-JR Pascale designed, originally launched in 2002 JAR certified and Retractable
P2002-JF Pascale designed, originally launched in 2002 JAR certified and Fixed gear

What has just been launched is the non-certified version of the P2002-JR the P2002 Sierra RG and it looks good.   The Tecnam website refers to this as an "Ultralight"  but I can't seem to find a suitable explanation of this category since the JAR Microlight classification calls for a 450kg maximum take-off weight (MTOW) and the Sierra/2002JR has an MTOW of 580kg.  In the US the Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) category allows for aircraft of up to 649kg.  So maybe it's aimed at the US, where Tecnam already has a good share of the LSA market. But wait a minute - the Sierra RG has a variable-pitch propeller which isn't permitted on an LSA airplane.

The one regime under which I do know where you can operate a non-certified aircraft like this is as a Kitbuilt or Experimental aircraft.  In these parts of the world that means under the auspices of SAAC or th PFA in the UK.  I wonder how long it will take the UK distributor of the Sierra kit to get the Sierra RG PFA approved or are there even any plans to.