(Ok guys, go can come back to the hut now, picture’s been taken.)

Mournes covered in snow..

.. snow? what snow..

Owen is the creator of this nice video!

Marc just sent me a few photos from that brill weekend..

Lizy, looking very innocent..

She looks as if nothing happened. Was not her fault I left the doors open or the plane in the car!!

stab damaged...

Ah well, taught me a lesson! The damage was easily mended, but beware off dogs looking for food!

Lady in pink.

..it is certainly the best colour as far as visibility is concerned!

 If my eyes don’t deceive me, it says ‘Kate’ on the wing, but do correct me!

The rightfull occupants of the place came by to say hello, nice meeting you ladies, but would you mind just stepping a wee bit out of the way?

..wanna have a flight ladies??

And of course, last but not the least, Dessy with his new engine/old Pitts.

(Like plane for a tenner, engine a tad more.)

I wonder why Norman is looking so worried. Do you think he has to test fly the beast??

..to the moon and back

After some hard work trying to wind up the rubber bands in the engine, it finally obliged, and sprang to life. Maybe due to the cold, but we needed to open the main needle 1.25 turns and the low needle 1 turn to get the music going. Ivan must have had his brain thawed out in the hut to come up with that solution, while the rest of us were wondering how to get enough juice into the innnards.. It might well be that we need to go back to the orignal settings quickly after a bit of running. But for now it was pure music, even on the stubby two so called exhausts. We managed 6500 RPM on a wooden 28 *10. It picks up and idles very well for a brandnew engine. Vibration levels are very low too, I would have expected them to be higher, especially on a wooden toothpick. Anyway, Norman being the Testpilot of choice (lucky for those with crossed thumbs) had to take a leap of faith. Since he knew this plane when it still housed a 50cc engine, at least that part was no surprise. After some careful taxi-ing to the take-off position, it was time to get airborne. With some last minute deep sighs, and suggestions to only fly at half throttle, she went on her merry way. Beforehand the max airtime was decided upon as being 5 mins, given that this brute is thursty. After some lazy uneventfull circuits, it was time to return from the moon.

Landing was largely a non event, but even at low tick-over it wants to keep going, despite the 13 mph breeze (measured that earlier). Norman said he had almost full up during the final part of the descent, which can be explained by the fact that Dessy did a plug an pray engine installation without readjusting the Center of Gravity sticker that comes with all planes. (DLE111 versus unknown 50cc, something has to move!)

Anyway, Dessy went home one happy man!

It was one of these days you dream of, little or no wind, just the right bit of sunshine, and not a horse in sight..