'The Fury' or 'How I Wound Up In The Doghouse'

[Flyin'Dutch']

Love it and very much enjoy your writing style!

[mick w]

Flintstone , I have some Wartime fur lined goggles which belonged to my dad , and used by myself , when flying a Fury , if you PM me your address I'll send you them . ( One of the lense's has a crack , but still usable ) .

[geejay]

what a great read, definitely looking forward to the complete assembled machine photos and the 1st flight video which i hope will be forthcoming........

[BlackheathBloke]

Hope you're able to give some advance notice of the Test flight so that a few of us can attend the occasion (and drink the copious amounts of champagne you'll obviously be providing )

[Flintstone]

Mick. That's incredibly kind of you, PM sent. I couldn't possibly keep them, perhaps they can just rest with me while I have the Fury. Hang on, fur lined goggles? You dad wasn't Dame Edna, was he?

geejay. video? Now there's a thought. If only I had a camera.......

BhB. You'll get Irn Bru and be grateful. Actually I'm awash with sloe gin which if the test flight takes place on a chilly day might come in handy. Afterward, obviously

[BlackheathBloke]

geejay. video? Now there's a thought. If only I had a camera.......

A few here have got all sorts of video gear, I'm sure we can find a spot to clip one of the bullet cams to get some onboard footage so it's not just the Test pilot that gets to keep the memory of the first flight to himself.

[BobM]

Fear not, I've just got a Gopro 3.... and have a standard video camera.

[BlackheathBloke]

Fear not, I've just got a Gopro 3....

Any good BobM? I'm thinking of getting one in time for the flying season, looks quite impressive from the tech spec.

[BobM]

I only picked it up a couple of weeks ago in the US ( Gopro silver from Best Buy ) and with family commitments and water logged runway haven't had a chance to play. will post on youtube when I do.Not sure its worth going for the black version, the silver seemed best compromise.

I'll see if mona44 can give a professional opinion

[mona44]

BobM,

I'd be very happy to furnish you a "professional" opinion of the new GoPro if you could just pop me one in the post...

I was never a big fan of the older ones. Clumsy, hit and miss framing without the 'add on' screen, primitive programming display/button, no audio in etc. There's a lot of alternatives that are/were doing it better. I have a Drift HD which is brilliant, complete and less money.

At first glance the new one looks much better and the App looks nice. And finally an audio in so you can record your RT. And agreed, the Silver looks more than capable. Look forward to seeing some results here!

And still waiting to do our air-to air mission....

Mona

PS Happy New Year!

PPS The only difference between professional and amateur is how much money you get paid to do it...

[Flintstone]

The plan was to get an early night last night, be up early today and head to the hangar. Strip and varnish the propeller, tie my stolen rope to the wheel chocks (proper heavy rubber jobs which I have recycled after someone threw them away on an apron somewhere) and fit the brass plate which arrived today. I was particularly looking forward to the latter as it declares me to be the owner. "Who owns this aeroplane mister?" "Me. Look, see? That's my name on that shiny plate in the cockpit".

So here's what actually happened. While preparing for my early night by relaxing in front of the telly I spied a cheeky bottle of red making 'come hither' eyes at me. Just one glass then. Oooh, that's nice. A second will help me sleep. Where's that boddle? I'll jus hav a sip and leave the remainnn rema rem rest fot tomorrow. Nilly all gonn nowww.......mide aswell finnnissh it bucause iss bad luck to leave one boddle in the glasss.......zzzzzzzzzzz. Notwithstanding my being ambushed by the Shiraz I was up at the crack of ten o'clock this morning. After two cups of tea and the three/four/five S's, a couple of phone calls and a wander through the halls of t'internet I finally got some tools and materials loaded into the car around twelve o'clock. Being a keen go-getter I decided to pack a lunch to eat while working (Multi-tasking see? I learned that in my CRM class, Timothy) and headed for the kitchen. Some nice brown rolls, a bit of ham and................swiss cheese Kettle on, flask of tea (no power at the hangar) and I was on my way.

Nuthampstead is only seven miles from home and I was there in no time. The concrete from the road to the strip itself seems to have dried a little over the last few days but the runway is still wetter than an otter's pocket so with the best will in the world it's still going to be weeks before anyone uses it. In the meantime that means nobody else around and I have the place to myself. Once the screeching cacophony of opening the hangar door subsided I was amazed at just how quiet it was. Well, apart from the drone of the occasional aircraft overhead, the price of having a VOR on the field I suppose. Not even any birds but then an open area like an airstrip has few trees so I suppose that makes sense. Some skylarks in the summer might be nice though.

As I started cutting wet and dry paper into strips to fit the sanding block it clouded over outside which made a big difference to the already low light inside the hangar. A small reshuffle of my aircraft and the one parked in front soon had me near the door but that meant the breeze kept blowing away the plastic dust sheets I'd draped over the fuselage. Nothing's easy in this aircraft malarky, is it? A few strips of green masking tape, the choice of Polish men everywhere, stopped the plastic from billowing too much and I set about removing the spinner, masking the cowls and rubbing back the varnish. Some of it had bloomed as a result of getting a little wet after the collapse of The Doghouse and this flaked off very easily. The wood itself was quite dry though with no sign of swelling or de-laminating which is rather nice and means I won't have to buy a new one. Being very keen not to score the propeller with too coarse a grade of paper I started out with very fine wet and dry but this barely touched the surface and became useless within a minute or two. I flicked through my arsenal of abrasives and stepped it up a notch which immediately paid dividends and I was soon down to the wood proper.

One thing that came to light during the last engine run was that the propeller is invisible when turning which might prove to be somewhat inconvenient after I've hand swung it and am scrabbling around to pull the chocks and climb into the cockpit. What is needed therefore is yellow tips. Dead easy, right? Rub back the whole prop, mask the blades leaving four inches of tip showing, spray tips in primer, spray tips yellow, peel off masking tape, go home and return the next day to apply three coats of varnish all over. I did notice while waiting for the second coat of yellow to dry that some idiot, looking a lot like me and wearing my clothes, had sprayed both the front and the back of the blade tips. Luckily for him I was quick off the mark with thinners and a rag otherwise headaches, nausea and possibly epilepsy lay in my future. I tell you, you can't get the staff.

I'd taken a battery powered drill and spade bit with me to do the job of fitting the rope to the chocks. Unfortunately I hadn't allowed for the end of the rope hardening after I'd melted the ends to prevent fraying so the bit I used was a tad too small. "Snugger than a finger in a bumhole" as my old engineer in Australia used to say. I'd deliberately bought yellow rope (elf 'n safety guv) which stands out rather nicely against the black chocks and grass and while I'm unable to prevent myself making some trite comment about them being this season's colours dahhling I really did mean it to work that way. Anyhow, that's enough of being sensible. On with my inept bodgery.

The only other little job for the day was affixing the plaque. The old one had been removed before I collected the aircraft and I hadn't really paid much attention to how it had been fitted which, it turns out, had been with small pop rivets. It would have been too much to hope that the holes for these would match the new plate and so it proved. Unfortunately the rivet holes were also bigger than the screws provided so I couldn't even fit it using just the one hole for now. Lacking any other drill bits other than the 1/4" spade I was going to have to put the job off until tomorrow. Lesson learned, either build a duplicate toolkit and leave it at the hangar or haul more tools and bits back and forth each time.

No photos for now. I'll wait until the prop is finished for the full effect.

[Charles Hunt]

Confused.

Why would you not want the tips yellow on both faces?

[Ian Melville]

I was going to ask the same question. I thought the only time it didn't match front and back, was when the rear was in black and white stripes.

[PortAndCheese]

I think the implication is that if the back were painted, the view from the cockpit when flying would include a flashing, distracting yellow blur.

Edited on reflection: Keeping the rear of the blades yellow would, however, provide a handy indication if the engine were to stop.

[mmcp42]

I think the implication is that if the back were painted, the view from the cockpit when flying would include a flashing, distracting yellow blur.

Edited on reflection: Keeping the rear of the blades yellow would, however, provide a handy indication if the engine were to stop.

not really up to date with this sort of thing, but I suspect there might be other ways of detecting engine stoppage

but with the prop spinning, wouldn't there just be a very large yellow circle, if you could see anything at all?