Essex Flyer – Building and Flying a Rans S6ES

Reports earlier today stated that  the safety cage was connected to the rear fuselage and that Hotel Sierra was back on her own 3 wheels! They were just connecting up all the controls. Getting exited now.

New Safety cage... at last.

After a delay in getting the safety cage from Rans in the USA, we are nearly there. I visited Skycraft today and they were taking Hotel Sierra apart. She ‘should’ be all re-assembled ready to be reunited with her wings on Friday!

G-RTHS being stripped down ready for re-building

All we need then is some flying weather!

The new safety cage is on it’s way and should be in the repair workshop in a couple of weeks. Hotel Sierra will be stripped down next week ready for her re-build

What a great day yesterday down at Stoke for our Home to
Roost Fly-in. The weather was flyable so we had several aircraft fly in to
enjoy the hospitality and BBQ. I arrived just as Dave and Steve from Damyns
were arriving overhead in their RV’s. Chris immediately gave me a hand held
radio and told me to park them up I then seemed to hold onto the radio for
the next 6 hours!

2 RV's from Essex

Next, the Essex police helicopter arrived for a ‘meet &  greet’ visit. They were showing everybody the incredible kit they have onboard.  This is a very large helicopter and very impressive.

Essex Police on a 'Meet & Greet' visit

Not long after the helicopter,  5 aircraft arrived from Sandy having to dodge the rain showers to get there.

5 Aircraft from Sandy

Roger, Keith and Pam had arranged a short nav ex, but obviously without an aircraft we did not join in that one . I am going have to divide my insurance so that the third party element is for me personally and the hull element covers the Rans, that way I could take up the offers of loan of aircraft.

The last visitor was Steve from Barling. During the after
noon I was ‘spotting’ for the spot landing and the fun and games. All in all a
very good day, I went home and slept very well last night, exhausted.

This weekend is our annual fly-in at Stoke. I am really looking forward to this even though I have nothing to fly yet. It usually is a good social.

Still no news on the parts for mine yet

It has been a several weeks since we were at the airfield, but this weekend we felt like visiting again. It was good to just chill out and chat to everyone. It did get a bit expensive though

Our cover on our hangar is 8 years old and is about 3 years past it’s estimated life. It is now getting so that if you accidently touch it with something sharp a hole will appear in the covering.

The hangars either side of ours were all done at the same time, and they are going to replace their coverings. After a quick chat, we have decided to join them and order ours at the same time. This has the added benefit of reduced shipping costs and we are all going to work on all three hangars together so making the recovering job easier.

The one thing which did surprise me though today, is how nervous I was about being near the runway when people were landing, I was quite twitchy about it. I don’t know why

News on Hotel Sierra, the new safety cage is being made this week and should be in the UK in early September. Skycraft can then finish rebuilding her and do the test flight. I hope to fly her home late September.

I am starting to get itchy feet and want to go flying, still, my friends, my wife and the weather are all working hard to keep me busy so that I don’t miss it too much

The latest I heard is that the wing is repaired and the gearbox checked and serviced. Just waiting for the cage etc to be sent over from the USA.

As promised here is a short video showing the cctv footage and photos form our recent ‘incident’.

The safety cage is bent so will need replacing and parts of one wing as well. It has been confirmed that the repair costs are covered by my insurance, so it just a waiting game for the parts from the USA. I will miss this summer’s flying, but hope to fly her again in about 12 weeks time (my estimate not the repairers )

I heard today that it can be repaired within my insurance limit by the UK Rans Agent. They collect it Wednesday!   

We are both OK but the plane is probably a write off!. One brake jammed on take off and I had to fly her at stall speed to miss aircraft and crews. We missed them but unfortunately I could not hold her up too long and we went in the sea wall.

Well after a long wait, today, the winds dropped, the clouds
lifted and we had some sunshine, oh, and I was not previously booked to do
something else! WE WENT FLYING!

It was really lovely up there, mainly smooth air with some turbulence
occasionally just to keep you awake.  This was the first time Rosemary had flown for
over two months, so we kept it to a local flight of an hour. We went from Stoke
around Canterbury and back via the Isle of Sheppey. In the Medway there were 6
Thames barges and they were under sail with a fire boat in front spraying water
into the air, a great sight. We dodged a few showers and had to come down a bit
occasionally to go under the clouds, but most of the flight was about 2,500’
with very good visibility. We could see the south coast as well as all the way
to Manston.

The first approach was not good, too high and too fast, and
another aircraft very close to the edge of the runway, so I threw that one away
and went around again. The second approach and landing were good and I was
happy with them. With another shower approaching, we put Hotel Sierra away and
went and had a chat with the rest of the pilots and visitors at the club house.

We had a couple of interesting things to watch as well, the Red Arrows flew
past in the distance and we also had 3 aircraft in circuit and a Spitfire flew
through the circuit, under the aircraft in circuit! Still it was good to watch,
so we forgave him. A very pleasant day was had by us.

It has been a while, I had hoped to get a couple of days flying in this weekend, it was not to be. Saturday and Sunday were too windy (gusting 37 knots), but today, the winds were favourable, so I got a couple of quick flights in.

We finished cleaning the visible sand from the cockpit and I took off for a couple of  circuits. The wind was  almost down the runway and not to bumpy. After a couple of landings, we checked the cockpit again and removed some more sand that had appeared. Following lunch up I went again, but this time the weather was very unstable and I was thrown around a lot. Not nice, so back to the circuit. I did a really nice ‘wheeler’ landing
on the first landing, but the second one was too fast so I was bounced back into the air, so I converted that one to a 3 pointer. The wind had got blustery now, so I called it a day. Again there was more sand in the cockpit so out that came. At the moment, after each flight I am getting about a couple of tablespoons of sand appearing each flight, I have no idea where it comes from, but it should be all out soon

So only 2 quick flights but it felt good to be back in the air!

Yet another week without flying, it’s been a month since my last flight! I spent today cleaning the sand from the sand blasting out of the cockpit. I thought I had filled any holes for it to get into the cockpit, but I was wrong . It has all gone well, but there is sand in the thrust bearings on the control column, so I have removed them for proper cleaning at home . I hope to put them back tomorrow and maybe get a quick flight in. At the moment the winds are a bit strong and nearly always crosswind. We will see what happens tomorrow…

After sand blasting the powder coat off the ‘cracks’ and then dye pen testing, all has passed as OK. No Cracks found !!! Just to be safe, we also tested the other side as well.

Hotel Sierra is full of sand in the cockpit, but it did need cleaning anyway Next week, we will clean out the cockpit and may even go flying! 

edited to add photos 8/5/11

Crack found in the powder coating

Dye testing the weld and tube

cockpit full of sand after sandblasting

My inspector gave me the OK to remove the powder coating and get the area tested for cracks. Trouble is I cannot get down there for two weeks now…

Still he is hopeful that it is just corrosion and the powder coating cracked. Fingers crossed.

Typical, Easter holiday, sunshine, 4 days freedom and GROUNDED .

We decided to do the 6 month check of Hotel Sierra today so that we had the rest of the weekend to fly…. wrong move! On doing a close inspection of the aircraft we found a crack in the powder coating around the left hand strut attachment bracket.

Crack found in the powder coating

Note in the photo above, the bare metal is where I scraped away some of the coating to reveal the corrosion below.

I am not sure if it is corrosion under the powder coating has caused the coating to crack or a crack in the weld and tube. The fact that the crack goes halfway across a tube makes me suspect it is just the powder coating cracked, but I cannot take the risk, if I am wrong the wing could fold up in flight.

Just waiting for my inspector to get back to me to see what we do next.