In this month’s edition:

• Christmas Dinner Photos
• Down on the farm 72 last month 12/24 – Tony Palmer
• Things are never as simple as you think they ought to be… – Richard Griffiths

Christmas Dinner 2024

Held at the Longshore, Shoreham on 4th December.

Photos taken during the ‘traditional’ quiz – hence the perplexed expressions. (Click on a picture for a bigger version.) A very pleasant evening all round.

Down on the farm 72 last month 12/24

Klemm L25C G-ACXE

We had noticed a very slight fuel leak from the gravity tank, so as this is the time of the year when flying is normally not happening we removed it, boxed it up and sent it away for repair. As this is the only tank in the world like this and popping down to your local British Klemm dealer is not an option, we decided that it had to be a wooden packing case and to use a decent courier. We constructed a very strong case by cutting a long thin one I had in stock in half and reinforcing it at the corners and join. We sent it off to Grant Garner in Notts to be checked, repaired and tested. It went on Jims last day before the Christmas break and I had it back by Christmas Eve, what an incredible turn around!!. I had used Grant to repair my Tiger tank years ago and he had to fit a new sump and gauge etc. to that so I knew we would get a top quality service. Let’s hope its cured the problem after all this flannel!!

Jim has still been investigating the wiring and checking the wiring diagrams for accuracy. We believe that there was some spares with the Prentice when it was being operated out of Biggin Hill but we think they were sold before we brought the plane. We are still looking for the new owner of the spares, so if you do hear of their whereabouts ‘please let me know.

The rubber seals and trim is the next thing to do as well as stripping the paint. The sourcing of the trim materials will probably mean going to vintage car suppliers, at least we have no shortage of them in this country!

Next club night January 8^th 2025

The club subscriptions will stay at £25 this year as it just covered the Xmas meal cost and will hopefully cover next years prices.

Please, PLEASE can we have club members come up with things to do this year!!! Maybe organize trips out to museums, fly-outs, someone to do an interesting talk??

Tony Palmer

Things are never as simple as you think they ought to be…

More experienced builders/maintainers might have been amused by my last month’s piece about reconfiguring the panel in my SD-1 SSDR. Of course it’s more complicated that naive me expected; a bit like three-dimensional chess!

Where I’d like things to go, and where they actually fit, given the space on the panel and behind, coupled with restrictions on the existing wiring (that I really didn’t want to mess with) makes for interesting compromises. Above is my first paper prototype. Well, at least the mounting holes are approximately in the right position. Version 2 is in preparation. The radio and transponder will still be below, but higher, mounted at an angel and further back.

Since everything is out, I’m also planning on a couple of improvements to the avionics: Number 1, the mode-S transponder that I’ve got, a KTX2, can be upgraded to ADS-B out with a GPS feed. It turns out that the AvMap Ultra EFIS can supply this. A couple of crimp-pins on the appropriate wires should do it.

Number 2 is to take advantage of a recent additional feature in SkyDemon that I run on an old Android mobile phone. If your radio is up to it, you can Bluetooth frequencies to it by touching them on the SkyDemon screen. The radio needs to be able to input RS232 from a Bluetooth dongle. Radios that can be operated from a separate panel (as in tandem cockpits) will have this facility and my KRT2 transceiver is one. I just need a Bluetooth to RS232 dongle so bought the one in the photo below; £4.99 from ebay. You can pay more (quite a bit) for the same thing in a plastic case, but they all have a redundant D-Sub connector fitted. It also needs a 5v power supply, that’s already there to run SkyDemon. So just a few more crimp pins to fit.

I’m sure it will all work first time…. hmmm….

Richard Griffiths

Events

Next Strut ‘Club Night’ at The Longshore is on Wednesday 8th January, 7:30 pm.

For a full list of events go to the website Events page.