Essex Flyer – Building and Flying a Rans S6ES

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.

We were due to go to the Duxford safety day today but had to pull out due to other commitments. However I did get a 40 minute flight in with Karen, another pilot at Stoke. We did not take off until early afternoon and with the sunshine and no wind to speak of we did expect plenty of thermals. It was, however, surprisingly smooth up there and a joy to fly. I took off and Karen then took over until getting close to home where I took over and landed Hotel Sierra. This was the first time Karen had been in a taildragger and she was not to keen on the raising of the tail on the takeoff run

When we were in the air, she liked the Rans but it has a lot less forward visibility than the Medway SLA, so she would need cushions on the seats to get a better view. The landing was long and floaty and we used up most of the runway! There was no headwind to help us and the runway was giving off a fair bit of heat. Still watching others there, they all floated

Roger turned up from Linton in the X-air he is helping to get back into the air. Unfortunately we were due to be back home so did not get a lot of time to talk to him.

Only 40 minutes flying but still a good day down the airfield.

A great day today, though somewhat challenging at the end of it. We flew to Old Warden today. A really nice airfield. Basically we only had time for lunch and not a look around the Shuttleworth collection on this occasion. The weather was wall to wall sunshine along with the associated thermals at the lower levels.

On the trip back, the thermals had increased and we had fun staying below the 1500’ between Stansted and Luton. I was glad we did though as at one point a 747 came over the top of us from behind and he was probably only 500’ above us. When he turned, we really caught his jet wash!

The ‘arrival’ back at Stoke was interesting. It is the worst conditions I have ever encountered there in the 8 years I have flown from there. We radioed in as we crossed the Thames and were warned that it was ‘horrid’ close to the ground. Hearing this I set up for a long shallow descent straight in from 5 miles out. It wasn’t too bad until we got to 200’ and then all hell let loose. The stick and the rudder were going from one stop to the other at a very fast rate just to try and stay straight and slightly level. We were just going to touch down when another gust took us back up to about 8’ without any real forward motion, so we landed  with a bump. On talking about it in the club hut, it had been a very interesting afternoon with everybody having trouble, even the CFI!

A great day out and we really enjoyed it.

At the moment I can only fly Saturdays, so flying for the next few weeks is very hit and miss. Yesterday (Saturday) was forecast to be too windy in the morning with a cold front passing overhead about midday and then flyable afterwards. Within an hour or so the forecasters were correct. About 2pm I started fueling up and then DI’ing the aircraft (Daily preflight inspection). All was going well until I spotted a fibre washer laying in the back fuselage. That was not there last time! I continued my DI knowing I would be coming back to that washer. After the normal DI I had a good look in the back of the fuselage to see where the washer had come from and noticed another loose item, a terminal screw from an instrument. I also spotted that the transponder Ariel was getting close to a rub point on the ground plane. The loose parts were investigated and it seems they came from the old 12v socket that had previously broken up and been replaced with a better quality one, they were the right size and shape and nothing was missing off the existing intruments, so that was solved (though where they have been hiding for the last 12 months, I do not know. I am assuming my deadstick fun a couple of weeks ago brought them out of their hiding place!).

After removing any rub points for the transponder ariel, and re-doing the crimp which was not as good as I would have liked, I had lost a lot of time and it was getting too late to go flying and get back for an appointment we had that evening.

Never mind, we had a good morning down there chatting with all the others on the airfield. Better luck next weekend.

No flying last weekend, the visibility was not good enough. We got ready to fly Saturday, but driving along our side of the Thames, we could not see the Kent side! The visibility was probably legal, bit it would not have been fun, so decided not to bother to drive to the airfield

It is such a shame, lovely sunny days, little wind but the visibility is horrible. Still this week is due for a shakeup in the weather so we shall see what it brings.