MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 2008

Well I wanted to show some shots of the Microlight fly-in at Popham last weekend but due to the wonders of modern science they were lost in the exchange from camera to computer. So I have been delaying further blogging until I had some more interesting pics. Today I received a couple of pics that got my attention and so I was inspired enough to start typing. Formation flying takes a lot of practice and can have unforeseen consequences. Those air intakes are meant to accept air being forced back to mix with fuel in the correct ratio to drive the jet turbine engines. Shielded by the back of the C130 the intakes may well be starved of air causing the mixture to become too rich and without a clever engine management system the EGTs on those turbines would go over

limits – expensive and engine trouble is not called for in flight critical situations! Following my return from Germany the UK weather has been foul, just the sort of summer I use

d to hate when I was hanging around airfields skydiving, totally unreliable with heavy rain showers interspersed with spells of drying wind and sunshine. You just think its coming good and another trough of low pressure drags half the Atlantic ocean into the heavens and drops it over Somerset.

I had booked a PA28 Piper Cherokee for Saturday afternoon to fly into the show at Popham, this event is one of the significant marks on the UK microlight calender and I would have normally taken the VPM gyro if the paperwork had been in order. Typical of the rare occasion that I get round to forward planning I found my aircraft booking canceled by the club due to lack of hours available before scheduled maintenance. As it turned out the tropical storm over Southwest England last Saturday made surface transport a sensible option for travel and I was much happier to accept a two hour drive rather than staring through a steamed up canopy in a ground groping cloud dodging attempt to aviate ‘visually’. Popham was blessed with an afternoon spell of sunshine following a downpour in the morning, the turnout of modern gyros was suficiently significant to establish this as the fastest growing sector of light aviation in the UK. Watch this mushroom in the years ahead, economy and versatility are attracting serious flyers to factory made gyroplanes and established microlight schools are adding this type of rotorcraft to their fleets. Great to see and a real reward for those of us who have been banging this drum for years. The stalls were rewarding and I came away withsome of those things that you don’t see anywhere else, not big things but some plastic map holders so useful in an open cockpit. The rest of the week has centered around organising my VPM permit renewal, critical to this was a visit from my engineer to sign off an annual inspection prior to a CAA visit scheduled for this Monday. Well that’s all done although I now realise I am still short of a scribble in a couple of crucial places. The airfield looks tidy due to some hurried mowing between showers and the Hangar/container is swept and respectable. Watch this space!