2006_02 Web
Contents
1. Newsletter of the Mid Kent Strut of the J POPULAR flyin ad Mike Negus Mike s Mutterings a FORCED LANDING No Problem One of our Strut members Les Powell had the misfor tune to be able to amply demonstrate his skill at a forced landing last October when part of his prop parted company The fol lowing is his account of what happened After a stop of an hour and a half at Sibsey and a fuel top up to maximum with MoGas the aircraft was checked for flight and all seemed in order There were no problems evident with the aircraft on the bags were strapped on the parcel shelf behind the flight up to Lincolnshire Seats The engine was hand propped and started nor from Kent the previous Mally power check with chocks was performed in morning 09 40 11 00 cluding carburetor heat and magneto checks The strip is orientated E W and the windsock indicated No passengers were on that the prevailing wind was a gusty variable south board however 2 Flight rly elected to use the entire runway from the east www midkentstrut freeserve co uk Skywritings Page 2 and use as much diagonal run as pos sible The aircraft was lined up after full and free controls was established hatches harness and engine power the take off roll was not unusual considering the crosswind effect On climb out experienced moder ate turbulence and intended to climb out to the south avoiding Bos ton up2. nature making problems hard to find If you are confident with electrical items finding broken wires or open circuit com ponents is a simple matter of using a multi meter set on the resistance range www midkentstrut freeserve co uk Skywritings Page 6 found the best way to find intermittent problems with the speakers on the head set was to connect the suspect unit to another headset using an intercom then wiggling the wires and bits on the suspect headset while wearing it and listening for crackles or dead spots Intermittent mi crophone problems on the suspect head set can be made in the same way but this time wearing the good headset Call me if you need any help Transmitted voice quality a very large and subjective topic as no two people will normally have the same opinion when comparing audio quality Because communication components do not always match up perfectly with one another it is my opinion that you should listen on the ground to someone else using your aircrafts communication system including your personal headset with the engine running This will allow you to hear what it actually sounds like to other radio users which can be a lot dif ferent to that experienced by you on board your own aircraft through the in tercom If an intercom unit is fitted try plugging the headset directly into the radio and repeat the test to see if this is causing problems When possible use someone
3. Transmitting more than 1 2sec for test purposes without an antenna connected or with an antenna grossly out of tune could damage the radio The energy produced by the radio when in transmit mode needs to radiate and hence dissipate heat If it is unable to do so for what ever reason it will be reflected back into the radio and damage the PA Power Amplifier unit have the equipment to make SWR measurements but the aircrafts trans mitter must have at least 10W output most handhelds claim to put out only 5W for it to work and it may be neces sary to borrow a radio with this higher power output to do this test Please note that a rubber duck or the type of antenna fitted to windscreens does not www midkentstrut freeserve co uk Skywritings Page 5 perform as well as a properly fitted external unit Note DO NOT transmit without an antenna f i t t e d DO NOT transmit without an antenna designed for air band frequencies DO NOT transmit with a damaged feeder cable DO NOT transmit with a disconnected feeder c a ble DO NOT transmit with the antenna is grossly out of tune i e SWR greater than 3 1 Here are some simple checks that test the basic continuity of the antenna fitted to an aircraft Disconnect the radio and check with a multi meter set to measure resistance that there are good electrical con tacts continuity or zero resistance between the outside ground screen of the BNC conne
4. aker to work A problem that am guilty of is to somehow set the headsets own built in volume control to off or low and com pensate for this by blasting it from either the intercom or the radio am happy to offer advice or hands on help if needed My e mail is john_knight1 yahoo com Mobile 0774 028 3297 Please note that there is actually a between john amp knight AGM Thursday 26th January 2006 Weather was would like to believe affecting the turnout for the above it www midkentstrut freeserve co uk Skywritings Page was a bit miserable as it has been all that month but were we downhearted course not Yours truly took the meeting after a fashion and the following is a report on the proceedings Apologies for absence were given for Jaqui Graham Derek and Mike Tooze who had resigned his commission Jaqui s report was read out summariz ing a fairly packed agenda for 2005 and confirmed her decision to stand down from the position of Strut Coordinator which she had held for a number of years Fortunately she has decided to stay on as a committee member so we shall still have the benefit of her spar kling repartee and enthusiasm A vote of thanks was expressed for her past ser vice from the floor and we are delighted to record it here Treasurers report was given by John which showed a healthy balance which had been reported through the last newsletter Principal expense was the purchase of a pri
5. ctor and the metal body of the aircraft or each of the ground plane foil strips if fitted to a non metallic aircraft There is a good electrical contact continuity or zero resistance between the centre pin of the BNC plug and the stainless steel whip There is no electrical contact open circuit or infinite resistance between the screen of the BNC and the centre pin Headsets These frequently seem to cause prob lems and it is sometimes difficult to identify the source of a fault It is very import to use the correct accessories on all radios to maintain performance and prevent damage For example the IC A22E has a cloning facility and the connection to this data line is on the ring of the stereo headset socket Plugging a headset or a converter with mono jack plug fitted will cause the data line to be earthed and possibly damage the unit Typical faults are Dirty connections my personal way of solving this when conditions allow is to use Maplins Switch Cleaner or something similar and a clean piece of dry cotton cloth or just a piece of dry cotton cloth on its own Some people recommend wire wool but think using it can do more damage and reduce the working life of the connectors especially the chrome types Wiring problems they seem to crop up in most places on headsets as well as air craft The faults are typically found where the cable enters the headset or connectors and can be intermittent in
6. ed the threshold cut the magnetos and rolled to halt tried to raise Marham w F e l P ie z d Marham ATC but they didn t respond then transmitted blind to try and get a relay message through to say was alright but there were no aircraft in the vicinity on that frequency evacuated the aircraft to inspect the front and realized that half a blade of the prop was missing this had caused the vi bration contacted Steve Solley on his mobile phone and asked if he would speak to the RAF and say all was well as had no contact number couldn t raise Fenland by telephone closed also gave him my position extracted from the GPS Within a very short space of time was visited by a www midkentstrut freeserve co uk Skywritings Page 3 Tornado Jet and walked around the aircraft facing them to indicate my state of health Cambridgeshire Police Helicopter Shortly afterwards was visited by the Cambridgeshire Police Helicopter who were out anyway they took my de tails was also visited by the Police Armed response unit and two Fire appliances one from each end of the road was adjacent to found out the owners of the field and they were contacted and advised of the situa tion they were not unduly worried and came along about two hours later to see what had happened Richard Yates Licensed Engineer came to the site to fit a replacement propeller and do machinery checks to es
7. else s kit in your aircraft and yours in theirs for comparison If the problem moves with your kit and disap pears using theirs then you have probably identified the cause It may then be necessary if a poor voice quality problem has been identified to make when possible level adjustments to the microphone If clipping and or distortion is heard it may be the micro phone gain is too high or too low if the audio is faint Microphones can degrade slowly and do go wrong Be warned even if you can get a replacement part they are not normally cheap If there is a com patibility issue then the more expen sive option is to find an alternative type make of headset or equipment that works with your aircraft and that is your choice Received voice quality tune to a Station like VOLMET to test the head set speakers the quality of this sta tion is reasonably constant as it uses pre recorded messages Plugging them directly into the radio can easily test headset speakers Try a different radio if the problem persists to check if it is your headset or the radio that is at fault Note that speakers like micro phones can slowly degrade and you can get used to it over a period of time Typical problem that come across are the intercom battery being low and the squelch and audio level are not set correctly for flight conditions Another common fault is the mono stereo switch being set to ste reo causing only one spe
8. nter on which to pro duce the newsletter thus saving in the long run this expense whilst paying for itself over the next few months John could report therefore no in crease in subscriptions this year which compared with some other Struts is still modest thanks to Johns Steady hand and prudent use of the Strut cheque book for which we should all be grateful A brief update on membership in Grahams absence revealed a fairly Static situation which probably has remained so these long years but new blood is still welcome THE ORIGINAL COMPUTER Delete www midkentstrut freeserve co uk Skywritings Page 8 Committee Contacts Co ordinator Jaqui Clark New Orchard Farm Sittingbourne MEY OQL Tel amp Fax 01795 830378 E mail jaquiC pfa org uk Treasurer John Dean 01892 822776 john_dean tiscali co uk Membership Secretary Graham Hammond 01622 891466 g twelveacrefarm freeserve co uk Newsletter Editor Mike Negus 01634 364396 57 Ploughmans Way Rainham Kent ME8 8LH mike negus8 blueyonder co uk Committee Members Mark Balding 01959 523825 Brian Hope 01795 662508 Mike Tooze 01634 865516 Derek Browning 01622 736626 Bob Chequer 01634 668276 Stephen Solley 01304 374337 Norman Willoughby 01634 314739 Newsletter report by me reiterated Johns news on the printer and a re quest as always for articles and believe you me you would be surprised what can create out of even a snippet of new
9. s so it can be a page a paragraph or a sentence ANY input welcome never let the facts get in the way of a good story as some of you might be cotton ing on to Mark gave a run down on events and in talks with some after the meeting we had some good ideas so watch this Space Despite an appeal for reason the com mittee in its present form was rein Stated for another year after a request for new members which still applies and a vote of thanks given gratefully accepted Finally any other business produced some interesting feedback which was duly noted and some of these ideas could well be adopted thereafter the meeting closed and the membership got on with what it does best drinking and nattering Dates for your Diary February 23 Builders Evening March 30 Arctic by RV April 27 Talk on Weather www midkentstrut freeserve co uk
10. tablish ser viceability of the aircraft After nu merous ground power runs felt there was nothing abnormal in the way of vibration then elected to continue on my way after a couple of circuits in the overhead He makes it sound so easy doesn t he Don t forget the Builders Evening Strut members relate their stories at the February meeting Spring Radio Checks by John Knight Spring is not that far away and have jotted a few notes on some basic checks that can be made to your radio equip ment especially if it has not been used during the winter This article has been written only as a general guide and some of it may not be applicable to the type of radio or the rest of the equipment in Stalled in your aircraft It is generally biased towards handheld models like the Icom IC A22 Icom IC A22 that own and also seems to be popular with a lot Strut members Please contact me if you have questions about other types of transceivers and will try and help if can www midkentstrut freeserve co uk Skywritings Page 4 Handheld Transceiver Batteries These are particularly vulnerable to damage especially after a long winter of being left unused in your flight bag Make sure that the battery is almost completely discharged through normal use before fully charging it for the time specified in the user manual Icom manuals can be downloaded from http www icom co jp world support download manual h
11. tml if needed Damage can occur to the battery pack if it is allowed to go completely flat for extended periods of time or if it is overcharged They also suffer from memory effects leading to shorter battery operational time if they are not fully discharged and then re charged for the correct time A lot of pilots use the aircrafts own electrical power to externally supply the radio This has the advantage of not loosing communications due to the battery going flat but the down side is that as with my own IC A22 the transceiver battery is also being charged at the same time leading to possible memory effects or overcharg ing A way to get round this is to re move the Ni Cad battery pack and run the transceiver directly from the air craft This leaves the bottom of the body of the transceiver exposed also a little short and an empty alkaline bat tery case may be fitted to overcome this Many aircraft voltage regulators are not very good at stopping transient voltage spikes especially when start ing stopping the engine please be aware of this and if possible have the radio turned off at these times If the battery life becomes extremely short then it is time buy a replacement and dispose of the old one in a responsi ble way SWR Meter Antenna The SWR or Standing Wave Ratio of an antenna is a measure of how efficiently your radio is radiating the energy it pro duces when you transmit
12. to 2000 contacted Con ningsby Radar and advised them of my intentions they asked me to squawk which couldn t Soon af ter was advised to contact Marham Zone this did advised that would be staying at 1700 and would be routing via Fenland They ad vised me to contact Fenland then get back to them Rather than con tact Fenland as have had difficulty raising them in the past on a Monday climbed to 2000 then reported to Marham They gave me a flight in formation service Around five minutes past Fenland felt a thud at the front and saw what thought was a bird exiting the prop at the 2 o clock position realized that something had happened to the power plant by the level of vibra tion so throttled back and at cer tain rpm that made it worse didn t know how much the turning prop was aiding the descent so elected to keep it running and minimize the vibration established that the air craft was still flyable and turned Feb Meeting at the Golf Club 23rd February down sun to get a better orientation of the fields and Dykes proceeded to call a Pan Pan and advised that was making a pre cautionary landing on the Marham fre quency also heard an American voice in there somewhere but think my signal was getting weak as descended they didn t know how many occupants there were elected a field to land in which looked big and flat and into the wind as soon as cross
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search