The last year has not been conducive to gyro progress. A three-hundred kilometre weekly commute & never-ending list of things to be done at home have taken their toll. There is light at the end of this tunnel - am driving to Auckland tonight to collect the aircraft and finally bring her home.
A random sampling of some of the issues keeping me awake:
(a) The very long time since the engine was last run. At least it's in an extremely dry environment.
(b) Running my cut-off saw off our inverter. Inrush current; slow-start circuitry etc.
(c) The almost-certain need to split the control tubes.
(d) Twelve kilometres of appallingly rough gravel from the main road to the front gate.
A long day; most of it spent at the storage unit engineering ways of fastening the blade box and the gyro to the trailer. All hail the cordless drill. Transferred the last box of parts to the car with 18 minutes to spare before being locked out for the night.
The weekend from hell, but the beast is home; more or less in one piece. Somewhere between Silverdale and Whangerei the nose wheel + fork left the aircraft... "bugger".
This evening I set about preparations for starting the engine. Highlights of this experience include removing leaf mould + algae from the exterior of the fuel tank; finding a receptacle for ten litres of stale fuel; using methylated spirits to remove some residual condensation and ultimately running of daylight before seriously getting anywhere. Tomorrow.
We are back in business - after some fussing about with stale two-stroke mix in the primer. Fortunately I'd drained the carbs. Once primed she started and ran with no fuss. And I couldn't resist locking the friction nut; checking the trailer / gyro combination wasn't going anywhere - and then wandering behind and luxuriating in the propwash for a few glorious seconds getting a nice healthy fix of two-stroke exhaust :)
Ordered a replacement nosewheel & fork from StarBee, as well as the linkages need to split the control tubes.
Went looking for the radio antenna, with a view to easing back into the build process by fabricating the mount for it - a nice piece of low-hanging fruit. Unfortunately it has gone astray somewhere in the move and a massive tidy-up and sorting out is now indicated.
Spent most of the day cleaning up the "workshop" - which for the last year has been the repository for all the stuff we couldn't fit anywhere else. Am going to need to install lights, power and a bench.
