Snagging 2nd flight Sunday 11th

Had a really busy couple of weeks at both work and home .. Partly frustrating as we had some nice calm evenings but partly not when , like today, we had 18kt from south on an E/W runway then going up to 30 later !

My first test flight .. Which just flew so beautifully and easily was followed by another close circuit .. It was planned to be 2 but an incoming FlyBe jet meant I had to extend my downwind (Westerly) so was over the sea for a large part of the time …

As this was a full 8 minutes into its total flying time I elected to request an orbit that would bring me nearer land and so orbited a nice tightish turn right at around 1200 and slowly descended and did about 180 degrees over the sea and 180 over the sandy beach below.

POINT of NOTE

during the Jersey Air Display week she was on static display alongside a whole host of amazing aircraft … Saab Viggen , Tornado an amazing warbird from Austria called a Boomerang real nice guy and had a full walk around

Whilst waiting on display I got the Sherwood fuelled up to save booking this later at the club. Filling her to the top.

As I orbited in the above flight over the sea and beach I was suddenly covered in fuel spraying into the front screen. I’ve had venting before in the Stampe but this is a high cabane mounted tank so it simply vents above your head. The Sherwood doesn’t and is in front of the front screen.

I realised that in the turn I had the fuel sloshing over , being so full, and it simply got sucked up the Venturi by the air passing over the top of the tube … This carried on for a while so I pushed slightly nose down and that seemed to break the pressure and it stopped instantly

Lesson learned – don’t fill to the top ! certainly not if you expect to orbit soon after !

Broke out of the turns after about the 5th and had planned a descent to around 800′ so this left me on a nice attitude for coming in over the cliff at the threshold of 08 at Jersey. 8kt crosswind from exact South yet again … And she handles so sweetly and easy to slip her down to a nice landing. Probably a little too fast if I am being honest

I have also found that running the tyres at about 12psi seems to be working but it slows quite quickly on the runway at Jersey .. I won’t change the pressures yet but perhaps a little firmer when I settle into more landings.

(with 4 test hops, 1 first flight-circuit and one this Sunday that makes a total of 6 take offs and, gratifyingly the same number of landings ha ha !