Smoke on …… go

Last Sunday we finally had a slight lull in the weather and .. having fuelled up … loaded about 30% of smoke oil into the oil tank.

Having started up and warmed the engine whilst waiting for the fueller to arrive I had a nice warm engine so was ready to taxi out pretty much straightaway.

I made a quick mobile call to Jersey ATC to request circuits and also advise that it would be a second test of the smoke system. There was a short delay whilst the clearance chap checked out with the tower and all ok.

Duly taxied out and lined up on runway 26 at Jersey .. with a nice warm engine … I had said I would probably do a full normal circuit before doing a long runway pass at say 700’ and try the smoke on and off serveral times.

Just after take off .. I banked out left towards Corbiere lighthouse and quick glance in my new small rear view mirror … thought .. let’s just flick the smoke switch for say 2 seconds and off…

RESULT …..

Lots of lovely white billowing smoke and stoped the instant you turned off. A few more on,off combinations and works a treat.

Clearly my previous setting of 2 full open valves on the mixture was way too rich .. Smoking Airplanes had suggested trying something between 1.3 and 1.6 .. I tried 1.5

Awesome smoke trail ..and BEST thing … if you waited for say 2-3 seconds and then looked back .. you could see the biplane wing wash and prop wash swirl beautifully symmetrically in the trailing smoke.

Will try a rear facing go pro on the next flight ….