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Stranded !
Today I wanted just to fly around the Brighton
/ Lewes area with a jaunt down to the coast and back to the same
field. I figured on flying about 30 miles all in. Keith had his
Doodlebug rigged along side my Wasp and we were looking forward
to flying in very smooth evening conditions as it was 6.00 pm and
the wind was only around 2 or 3 mph.
We took off into a clear sky with nice views of
the town and the coast beyond. I was using a wooden prop today to
compare it with the carbon prop that I usually fly with. I was getting
higher revs but no more power it would seem, although I'd need to
do a direct comparison to check that.
We headed out towards Lewes and over the top of
Mt Caburn where two paragliders were vainly attempting to stay up
in very light lift. We left them to their fate in the bottom landing
field and we headed south to the coast. Keith began giving me some
hand signals which seemed to indicate that he was having some problems.
I thought he might be concerned about his fuel level so I picked
a big field at Telscombe Tye to land in and check his fuel.
We landed side by side and after finding that
we had loads of fuel we tried to re-start the engines to continue
the flight. No luck. They would not start whatever we did and we
ended up simply running both batteries down in the process. We were
stranded.
I find it odd that we were both in the same predicament.
I could accept that one engine might have a problem but why two?
In the end we had to accept defeat and get a lift back. Keith puts
it down to flying on Friday the 13th. I don't know about that but
I can't think of any other reason.
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| My wasp and K4 |
Keith fiddles with the bug |
Still no luck |
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By the time we got out of the field it was dark
and we were not happy bunnies. Better luck next time.
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