Flying Again (until the carb falls out)

After the last crash, I finished building the latest incarnation of my Wot 4 ready for flying at the weekend.

I had gone to the Magic Circle Dealers’ Day on Saturday morning – which was a bit disappointing with fewer dealers there than in previous years with less of interest to sell. It seems that most people now make DVDs rather than write magic books or sell props, and therefore there was less demonstration than in previous years. Even the items that I did buy came with explanations on DVD rather than in writing meaning I could not even sit on the train and read the instructions!

When I got home early in the afternoon, the weather was bright, not raining and not windy, so I decided that it was worth taking the plane up the field for a first flight. As before, Trevor checked everything over and took off. There was not a lot of trimming required, and soon I was in control, flew around for a bit, and landed. I was more scared for this first flight than I had been on my test – worried that something was about to go wrong and another plane would crash. But all went well. I then took the plane up for another flight, and again everything went well. The troublesome second flight was over. With that I decided not to push my luck, and called it a day.

On Sunday the weather was not too good, and so I did not venture up the field until lunchtime. I had great trouble starting the engine, but managed to get it started a couple of times for a couple more flights. As on Saturday, I did not do anything fancy – just getting the plane in the air, flying some circuits and then landing. The attempted final flight of the day did not happen. I was having great trouble in the getting the plane started. I was getting some help from others when I noticed that the needle valve on the carb was loose. Tightening this would require removal of the prop and the cowling surrounding in the engine. I removed all of this, only to find that the threaded hole in the carb into which the grub screw attaching this to the engine had become enlarged – probably due to the vibrations during flight – and therefore I could not secure the carb in the engine. My flying for the day was over.

Although one option is to stick the carb in the engine, I managed to get a replacement engine relatively cheaply. At the moment, I have merely taken the carb from the new engine and put it in the existing engine so it is ready to fly. I am not sure whether I will stick the old carb in the new engine, try and get a carb (although the price for a carb was not much less than the price for a full engine) or swap the engines. But hopefully the weather will be good and I can fly again soon.