General aviation in all it's flavours
pyry
Registered Users Posts: 1,733 Major grins
Boy did we have a colourful day at a small local airport a little while ago. 
We were there to launch a couple of model rockets and fly some park flyers. When we got there a motor glider was doing touch-and-gos on the main runway - nothing special about that.
So we pulled out the gear:
That tiny litte plane Paula is carrying is an X-twin. They cost next to nothing, are fun to fly and almost impossible to break. And you get faces like this when someone hits the ground with bounce:
"Oops" :lol3
Here's yet-another-lift-off-shot-of-a-rocket then:
After a couple of hours we were getting ready to pack up - and that's when this started getting interesting. A couple of old geezers walked over from the hanger and asked us if we had a 12 volt battery. They were trying to start their airplane, but discovered that the battery was completely flat and the charger wouldn't get going without a little bit of current to wake it (the engine was fine, airplanes don't need batteries to fly, but the avionics do).
So we pulled out the battery from our rocket launcher and headed over to the lovely old little "Emeraude" - it's plans are from the '50s and it was built in the '60s.
Samuli there is holding the spare battery, the pilot (who is in there, I assure you) is plugging the wires in underneath the instrument panel. The other old geezer started the engine by throwing the prop to get the alternator turning.
After a couple of tries it was decided that the alternator was good, but battery needed replacing. So we did the start up again with engine cowling in place and the spare battery connected to the alternator. This way we got the engine and the electrics going until the engine would be turned off again. Enough for the pilot to get to Malmi a short hop away for the night.
So it's run the wires, put on cowling, connect battery, throw prop, retrieve wires from underneath the cowling a foot and a half from the turning propeller:
Result:
Yay!
Emeraude made it to Malmi just fine. It was seen there having the battery problem fixed the next day
As we were prepping the old airplane for departure, a brand new one landed:
The two blokes had taken that litte ultralight (it's an Airlony Skylane) from the Czech Republic through Germany and Denmark to Norway and all the to Nordkap which is about as far north as you can get here without crossing oceans - it's well above the arctic circle. There they had pasted a little stick-on moose to the rudder and headed back through Sweden and had here just made it to where we were in southern Finland. They were planning to head back home via Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. What a nice trip!
I looked closer:
They were very nice to let me have a sit in it too:
Surprisingly comfortable that
All the electrical switches had their 'on'-positions marked "Zap."
Those funny Czech people :lol3
Thanks for taking a look.
C&C appreciated :thumb
We were there to launch a couple of model rockets and fly some park flyers. When we got there a motor glider was doing touch-and-gos on the main runway - nothing special about that.
So we pulled out the gear:
That tiny litte plane Paula is carrying is an X-twin. They cost next to nothing, are fun to fly and almost impossible to break. And you get faces like this when someone hits the ground with bounce:
"Oops" :lol3
Here's yet-another-lift-off-shot-of-a-rocket then:
After a couple of hours we were getting ready to pack up - and that's when this started getting interesting. A couple of old geezers walked over from the hanger and asked us if we had a 12 volt battery. They were trying to start their airplane, but discovered that the battery was completely flat and the charger wouldn't get going without a little bit of current to wake it (the engine was fine, airplanes don't need batteries to fly, but the avionics do).
So we pulled out the battery from our rocket launcher and headed over to the lovely old little "Emeraude" - it's plans are from the '50s and it was built in the '60s.
Samuli there is holding the spare battery, the pilot (who is in there, I assure you) is plugging the wires in underneath the instrument panel. The other old geezer started the engine by throwing the prop to get the alternator turning.
After a couple of tries it was decided that the alternator was good, but battery needed replacing. So we did the start up again with engine cowling in place and the spare battery connected to the alternator. This way we got the engine and the electrics going until the engine would be turned off again. Enough for the pilot to get to Malmi a short hop away for the night.
So it's run the wires, put on cowling, connect battery, throw prop, retrieve wires from underneath the cowling a foot and a half from the turning propeller:
Result:
Yay!
Emeraude made it to Malmi just fine. It was seen there having the battery problem fixed the next day
As we were prepping the old airplane for departure, a brand new one landed:
The two blokes had taken that litte ultralight (it's an Airlony Skylane) from the Czech Republic through Germany and Denmark to Norway and all the to Nordkap which is about as far north as you can get here without crossing oceans - it's well above the arctic circle. There they had pasted a little stick-on moose to the rudder and headed back through Sweden and had here just made it to where we were in southern Finland. They were planning to head back home via Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. What a nice trip!
I looked closer:
They were very nice to let me have a sit in it too:
Surprisingly comfortable that
All the electrical switches had their 'on'-positions marked "Zap."
Those funny Czech people :lol3
Thanks for taking a look.
C&C appreciated :thumb
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