THE MICROLAND THREAD..."Home of the Tailwinds"

[Bundy]

BUNDY Gaan jy saam met Bugwar vlieg vir die naweek? Ek het 'n hele chalet vir myself - as jy nie snork nie kan jy share!

Dude.... I snore like a buffalo

Daai lang naweek vat ek vir Maxine en Troy af see toe maat. Allready organised a lekker flip in a Foxbat along the coast though.

[Bateleur]

Saterdag en Sondag oggend was perfect weer. Dit was great om weer in die lug te wees! Ek, Paul & D Mulder het Sondag Cullinan toe gevlieg. Baie nice! It is always nice to fly with some other planes. Gets a bit boring if you fly alone every weekend. A quick braai and a beer afterwoods in the lapa rounds it all off nicely! We should really do this more often.
Bugwar, dit was nice om jou te sien Sondag, veral sonder dat ek bloeende hande en 'n op gevromelde aerie het soos wanneer ons mekaar laas gesien het.
DBP vlieg soos 'n droom en moet nou BAIE vlieg!!
Thanks Bundy, hierdie is 'n great post, kom ons gebruik dit sodat ons bietjie GEES in ons klub kan terug kry.
Sien julle by ML.

[Bundy]

There has been a bit of a hanger "re structuring process"....

Sadly....Asterix has immigrated north. He will be missed for sure...
But...Bugwar has thus moved to Asterix's old hanger...and the Beautiful Dawn finally has her own hanger now too. So glad not be in the hanger of death anymore.

I'm happy as it's south facing (no sun on my wing) and we only share with one other guy....who doesn't fly apparently and one look at his aerie seems to confirm this.

Dont worry...I will pay Johannes to wash your trike for you...I cant stand looking at a dust decaying aerie At least there is only 1 in this hanger and not 8

We will be doing our usual "Fly and Braai" on every 3rd Sat of the month from now on chaps....bring your vleisie and an ale or two. Fires will be provided. Next one due 18th August. Everyone welcome.

[mulderpm]

Why only then . We will have some unoficial ones in the mean time then. To all that were @ ML this weekend...it was great . Thanks for the saamvlieg ...it is always nicer to share I even prefer taking a pax than flying alone.

Bundy, I have some pic's..will mail them to you.

Bateleur, Apparently if I want to balance my prop I will have to do it myself. It is very time consuming. Was hoping someone like NC or PD could help with this job.

I am hoping to add some more shade cloth to my hangars north facing door to reduce the winter sun. I would like it if all the guys in my hanger would club together to buy the material (95% shade cloth for +/- R600). Hans will fit it. We all fly often and therefore we will all benifit from the blocked out sun. Two hundred bucks each...cummon guys.

Fly safe

[Bundy]

Why only then . We will have some unoficial ones in the mean time then.

Vir seker... you mos know Bundy doesnt go anywhere without his coolerbox mate.

The "Official" Gatherings will be the 3rd Sat of every month. If the weather's kak...doesnt matter...kan net rond sit en kakpraat. Always nice to go irritate Mervyn, Fanie and Hans if there is nothing better to do...

[Bateleur]

Paul, I have no idea about balancing a prop, but I think you should maar do it as soon as possible. A vibrating prop is a bit scary to me! Can Hans not do it for you?

[KlapperKnop]

Bundy/Batleur ... I would like to take a flight to Klip sometime, maybe fly ML - Heidelberg - Klip/Circus and back. Get a bit boring flying the usual flips, Rhino, Cullinan, Dam.

[Bugwar]

Bundy/Batleur ... I would like to take a flight to Klip sometime, maybe fly ML - Heidelberg - Klip/Circus and back. Get a bit boring flying the usual flips, Rhino, Cullinan, Dam.

The Vulture Squadron is flying to Kokoriba for the long weekend in August. Come and do a lekker 2 hour cross country with us. I know a guy who is alone in a 4 bed chalet and may agree to share...

[Bundy]

Bundy/Batleur ... I would like to take a flight to Klip sometime, maybe fly ML - Heidelberg - Klip/Circus and back. Get a bit boring flying the usual flips, Rhino, Cullinan, Dam.

Agreed KK, We do seem to get "stuck" into a little routine at times. Bugwar gave me a flip sometime ago to Delmas while I was without wings. Was lekker to fly to a different spot for a change. I have never explored the area around Heidelberg/JHB south and will be planning a few trips there soon once I'm confident behind the controls again.

Be nice to pick a destination and get the Chain Gang, Rieties, and Panorama guys to join us for instance...When it gets a little warmer...(en my sak is nie so plat nie ) I'd like to go up to Tribal's spot for the weekend again as well.

[mulderpm]

Paul, I have no idea about balancing a prop, but I think you should maar do it as soon as possible. A vibrating prop is a bit scary to me! Can Hans not do it for you?

Hans said he will help. But, because it is so time consuming I must do it.

[KlapperKnop]

Paul, I have no idea about balancing a prop, but I think you should maar do it as soon as possible. A vibrating prop is a bit scary to me! Can Hans not do it for you?

Hans said he will help. But, because it is so time consuming I must do it.

Paul, Peter de Necker has a document explaining how to balance a prop. Try and get the document and attempt to balance the prop yourself; yes it appears time consuming, but it does not seem to be too difficult.

[Bundy]

Some pic's from Sat.... the first one's taken of The Beautiful Dawn....IN FLIGHT
Thanks to Dionne Mulder for the camera work!

This (I think) is Stef's first Take off in DBP!

and....Rotate Bundy.... Still my favorite part of flying.

In the flare, Rnwy 35. Nice little "gremlins" coming off the hangers in the crosswind.

And a full stop.

Slowly getting used to how this bird likes to fly.

[Asterix]

There has been a bit of a hanger "re structuring process"....

Sadly....Asterix has immigrated north. He will be missed for sure...
But...Bugwar has thus moved to Asterix's old hanger...and the Beautiful Dawn finally has her own hanger now too. So glad not be in the hanger of death anymore.

I'm happy as it's south facing (no sun on my wing) and we only share with one other guy....who doesn't fly apparently and one look at his aerie seems to confirm this.

Dont worry...I will pay Johannes to wash your trike for you...I cant stand looking at a dust decaying aerie At least there is only 1 in this hanger and not 8

We will be doing our usual "Fly and Braai" on every 3rd Sat of the month from now on chaps....bring your vleisie and an ale or two. Fires will be provided. Next one due 18th August. Everyone welcome.

Since that aerie in front of you is a decaying wreck, I took the liberty a year or so ago while standing around in the hangar, watching Bugwar fiddle with the Red Raptor, and switched on the Skydat.

You will not believe it BUT:

1. The Skydat actually fired up - I was amazed - must be some moer of a battery in there;
2. That sorry dust covered corpse, formally known as a trike, has got less than 100 hours on the clock. If I remember correctly it is something like 84 hours, total time. And look at it. Makes me want to cry / assault people.


Also - in my old hangar, you now have Bugwar and Nico (black and yellow Aquilla) and a green Windlass in front - that thing has not moved in five years - same as above - dying trike.

Why don't you convince Hans to move this green corpse to your "new hangar" with the yellow corpse, and move The Beautiful Dawn in with Bugwar? I'm sure the owner won't mind about the floor? He doesn't even fly the poor thing!

In this way, we group together trikes that actually fly, and we formalize a graveyard - no need for two flying trikes to live separately next to corpses when we can just as easily move all the stink into one hangar! Talk to Hans - and quote me - I'm sure he will understand.

If he doesn't - just move them. Ask Johannes to help.

[Asterix]

Ag sorry - just another few comments - (I will stay active on this topic - even though I am far, far away, Microland will always be home to me!)

1. Bundy - thanks for organizing braais again - now that you can fly again, and I am gone!! - but HA HA - who will make the krummelpap and sous?? (and remember - Bugwar kan nie braai nie....)
Ook nie vuur maak nie..

2. From those pics above: It seems to me like DBP lands lovely. I TOLD you it would fly better, now that it has a significant amount of yellow incorporated into the wing... Yellow aeries fly better - ask any cropsprayer!

[Bundy]

James, I can tell you this plane is the best Aquilla I've flown so far. Much better than the Dark Blue Princess.
Do you remember how long our take off roll was in the old plane?....You can shed about 50m off that now. No "slipping" in the turns and she holds in ground effect forever. Needs a bit of time to stretch and settle (wingsail) and only then will we consider moving the hangpoint forward. Currently she is cruising a little slow at 43mph IAS, GPS has confirmed this as correct.

This NC prop is AMAZING! Our RPM in the cruise is 400-500 lower than before. Getting the right throttle setting has been a challenge You just touch the rev's and that VSI goes crazy. I used to climb out on full taps...now I have to bring the revs down a bit otherwise the nose just wants to climb heavily... Stef and I are both very chuffed with the overall performance so far.

These Braai's are an inevitable consequence of me being at the airfield again every weekend What can I say?.....when the flying's done I like to "socialise"

I get what you are saying WRT the hanger's but to be honest I think we will stay where we are. (I quite like the fact that I dont have to push out another trike to go fly now. . The other day I had to move 5!!! Bug War and the gang are at least not so far away from us anymore.

What has suffered the most after 4 months off was not the physical ability to control the plane....it's other things like situational awareness, RT and procedures which I must admit are a little "rusty". Working hard on these to get them right and the confidence is returning quickly. Like Merv said to me...."you just need some time in the air"

Big thanks to Merv and Fanie, they have done a lot to get me (and Stef) back on track. Didnt even charge me for my "dual check"!