10Jun15 - Blanik wheel Wednesday

Blanik wheel Wednesday

10-Jun-15

From Garrett Russell's report on Monday's gliding operations:

Meanwhile Bert had given up on the Blanik wheel, which will require some mid-week work, and launched his motor glider for what he planned to be a three hour flight. Alan Graham had to leave before his own chance to fly. And Simon and Carlo Brodie agreed that waiting for the Blanik would be better than attempting mid-training conversions to the Twin.

An early morning phone conversation with Lindsay Mitchell today alerted me to the fact that he could not be at YCAB until at least Friday morning and therefore the Blanik may not have been available for the Friday Crew. Lindsay had however commented that Bert Persson may be working on the problem before then ... so I made a call to Bert's home number (only to find out that he had just left for the airfield "to fix a wheel").

Bert's aversion to what he refers to as "modern inconveniences" meant that there was no mobile phone to contact him on ... so I finished up matters at home and headed for YCAB as quickly as I could.

When I arrived, guess who I found under the Blanik?

The plan to use a spare Blanik wheel had been abandoned due to the complication that had taken up Bert and Alan Graham's morning on Monday (European metric measurement wheel hub mismatch with American imperial measurement tyre and tube).

Taking the wheel off "Bravo Juliet "in situ" in the shipping container had been considered, however Bert had found a serviceable tyre and tube in his hangar and it was decided to fit them both to Yankee Kilo's existing bright red wheel hub.

A series of complications then conspired to make the overall task a very long job. For example, most of the morning was needed to separate the two halves of the split-hub so that the old tyre could be removed ... they had apparently become very fond of each other and just did not want to part.

By 2:15 pm we were still hard at it (we did however have a short lunch break at Fasta Pasta).

Then the first replacement tube we tried to fit would not fit properly due to a different shape in the valve stem so another search by Bert upturned a second replacement tube candidate. With this tube and the tyre fitted we headed to Yankee Kilo thinking the job was getting close to being finished.

We then fitted the wheel to Yankee Kilo only to find that, when it was completely in position and rotated, the end of the valve stem did not clear the fork (even with the plastic cap off). So it was off with the wheel and back to Bert's hangar where careful bending of the valve stem and the positioning of a thick sleeve over it to keep it in position made sure that it did clear the fork.

Approaching 3:30 pm the job was finally complete ... with the replacement tyre and tube on Yankee Kilo's existing main wheel hub back on ready for the Friday Crew.

Many thanks to Bert!

He does a lot of maintenance work behind the scenes in his own time for the Club ... his experience and expertise is a big asset to us and his efforts are very much appreciated.

Thanks also to Alan Graham who gave up his flying time on Monday morning to assist Bert.

Kevin Rodda