Tinkicker

Nope. The sun has to be shining at least 14 days before, and forecast to be shining at least 14 days after I venture out. Have no need for pinlocks. They remain at the bottom of the hemet box.

Well I wrote off another comanche on a flight from hell. Brought the comanche back to leeds yesterday and this morning disembarked on a flight to Aberdeen. Returned this afternoon. After an uneventful flight, I was heading south over the Dales,with about 25 miles to Leeds. The cloud lowered and I suffered moderate icing over moorland tops and had to descend to just a couple of hundred feet above the moorland to get into warmer air. The ice slowly melted. Phew. Then the engine cut out suddenly.... A glance at the gauges showed plenty fuel, but no fuel pressure. I switched to the tip tanks, no change. I switched on the electric fuel booster pump.. The engine gradually picked up again. By this time I was getting ready to put it down on the moor, barely 20ft of air between aircraft belly and the ground. Obviously the engine driven fuel pump had failed. Disaster averted. Flew into the pattern at Leeds, lowered the gear handle and nothing.. Gear was not moving. Moved out of the pattern and put it on autopilot to figure out what was wrong. Checked my control bindings, all ok and working, so it was not a sim glitch. Tried to lower the gear by way of the mouse cursor operating the switch. The switch moved from "up" to "off" or neutral position, but would not stay in the down position. Great. Never mind, I still have the manual gear extension handle.... It would not work, jammed solid. Something had failed big time in the landing gear. So a wheels up landing on the runway at Leeds. Cut fuel, engine mixture and battery power over the threshold. and held her off as long as I could. Bent prop, broken crank and other mechanical mayhem ensued. What a hellish flight. Edit. Just about to shut down the PC and got a notification that windows wants to update and restart the PC. I bet that feckin update was the cause.. it was probably trying to open a window to "notify" me that it needs to update and restart.

Yup. Should a nuclear warhead detonate in the vicinity, I can guarantee that the two bikes in the pic will be the only two running vehicles for miles around... If they survive the fireball of course. Of course, you all know me by now, I have a spare VFR750 CDI lounging in an old biscuit tin for such a scenario.Dunno what is wrong with me. My default stance is always "what if"? Maybe it is because I always had shit luck...

Unsolvable?

Its one of those times when I am doing a little soul searching... I have three bikes to insure and keep roadworthy. Do I really need them? My heart says keep them, my head says sell them and buy something like an Africa Twin to do some serious miles on when I retire, or a full motion rig for my flight simulators. Ok, the VFR would do the miles, no bother, but not really the thing for two up long distances. The other two are not serious road bikes and never were. Just low mileage fun bikes to hoon around on once in a while... My heart gazes fondly, while my head says I am looking at around £9K of dead money taking up room in the conservatory.... What a quandary..

Another vote for CB500, pre ABS model. Very simple to maintain, great handling and very reliable. I had some on fleet with over 80,000 miles on the clock and apart from routine consumables and service items, brakehoses and clutches, nothing seemed to go wrong with them. Very drop friendly too, an important issue for a riding school. Here is the five door hatchback edition.. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306172658143?_skw=cb500&itmmeta=01JPCRXZKTRDQVN4E65H06TXMJ&hash=item47495001df:g:5EkAAOSwYg9nzVFe&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA4FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1d6DaLDeMXC%2BB41vmZ6XRsso8FzUSs00PQicFKfdaXtz%2BaoYGRXKeYNCHn3BGecK63KXzr9tqh5K9A%2BFZAzFKByQeilynNi2dTtWOmyuWD4JWTvXDhzb1N3BJ%2BIB1H%2FxNHSPH6oIq40EiZluyooFaR%2FZncBUggAs6Af%2BDhmnMqschSstY7Ip68MIgoI7SKRAArc0TM9Ea91NCJosOtOzsP3zUZgwhL0rND1Yde0oQtmKXO8mVh0393lQp17m5s%2B9ZzB2RTbuKyRx6rOOtxHmj9r|tkp%3ABk9SR_z595izZQ

Todays Failures... Tried to tax the VFR for the 1st April. Tax site would only do it for the 1st of March.... Fail. Jumped in the car, drove to Selby to pick up my rear wheel and shiny new michelin road 6. Turns out rear tyre still on backorder. Delivery sometime this week. Fail. Front tyre has arrived, but I took in the rear first. Rear wheel is at the shop, sans tyre. Front wheel still held in by spindle until rear wheel refitted to only have one wheel out at a time. I picked the wrong wheel to remove first.... Fail. Drove home empty handed. Looked at the front wheel, jacked up the front end, removed the wheel and chocked up the front end on wooden blocks so three points of contact, centrestand, screwjack and wood block under the sump and wooden blocks under the front forks. Drove back to selby to drop off the front wheel. I should have chocked the bike up in the first place and taken the wheel to the shop during the first trip. So 50 or so miles motoring over two round trips, just to deliver a front wheel to the shop.... Fail. Sigh...

Yup. After a little research, it seems the fix is to dive into the settings and turn "displacement mapping" off. It is supposedly to allow arcraft wheels to leave ruts and tyre tracks in grass and dirt but is severely broken. It is giving the developers of add on third party scenery and airports conniptions... At least I have a fix now, albeit by turning off a much hyped, publicised "feature" of the sim

I stand corrected... https://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/model/Honda/honda_cb125t 80.htm

15 on a really good day and on a press prepared example with polished ports....

The sim is major broken. I will post a pic of my landing at Lille that destroyed my aircraft.... This is how bad it is since the last "fix". This is a taxiway, the spikes suddenly appeared and destroyed my aircraft..... Microsoft... [

James swung by the hanger whistling. I guess he is finally sharing a bed with Debs again... Ahh. There you are. There is a a Whizz Air flight to Gothenburg at 10:15. Get your arse on it and bring your aircraft home. Are the technical "difficulties" repaired? I gather so. You gather??? I believe. Whats the matter, you want to live forever? Hell no. 10:15 then. You have been lurking around this hanger long enough. You have a hotel reservation in Lille, where you will stay overnight and resume the flight on Saturday. So here I am in a sunny but cold Gothenburg getting the Comanche ready to fly. Climbing out over a sunny but cold Gothenburg. It did not last, by the time I arrived over copenhagen, the very regular rain showers were torrential. I could not go over the top because even at 1500ft, the air temp was hovering around zero and I experienced clear air icing at 2500ft. You could hardly hear the engine over the roar of the rain and hail. # The technical difficulties were not in fact ironed out as I found out near Arnhem. I suddenly found myself out of the cockpit and sat astride the fuselage, facing rearwards like some sort of rodeo clown. James, you utter, utter winker. Route so far. sim is too unstable after my little "upset" to attempt any more screenshots.. Don't want to suddenly materialise in the prop...

I think another couple of nails in the coffin that came about in the late 80s/90s where youth is concerned is image and what you could buy on an apprentices wage. In the 70s and early 80s, the average youth could afford a shiny new smallsh motorbike, take a simple road test and then ride a less shiny but still in excellent condition bigger bike, or buy a 5 year old rotting old vauxhall viva with flapping doorskins, a will it or won't it engine and more rust than paint on the sills. Then came the era where you could buy a reliable 10 year old car with virtually no rust very cheaply and have the money left over to "modify" it. Also, over the years, the rebel without a cause reputation of bikers, left over from the milk bar antics of the 50s and 60s leather and denim rockers on their Triumph Tigers and BSA Lightnings faded away. Bikers became Motorcyclists, cut off their long hair, swapped black leather for colouful textile and became much more socially acceptable. The rebellious teenager turned away from bikes as a lifestyle persona, and had to find other means of showing he was a bit more "flinty" in outlook, than the average youth.

Love the rose tinted glasses. However, back in the late 70s the bike units sold were in the quarter milliion. Not the hundreds they quote now.

Apart from a cost of living thing, a major factor in my view is that those that lived the "golden age" of motorcycling, inc a lot of friends from way back in the mid 70s. when motorcycles were everyday transport as well as a weekend leisure item, have just retired. I was a early 80s biker, so I caught the final wag of the tail as bikes became as expensive to run as cars due to ever increasing cost of insurance and ever more complexity. Suddenly, cars became the thing to own for a spotty 17 year old. So, bikes not really popular with the youth after the early 80s. We did have "comebacks" as those that missed out on bikes in the 70s and 80s started to have mid life crises and bought one to look cool on, most did not keep up with it. So the 70s stalwarts no longer have the disposable income they had when working, add on the various benefits the government stopped, the increased cost of borrowing and the massive cost of living inflation added on, it is a death spiral for new bike sales.

Toddled into Selby to check if my tyres had arrived. Yes and no. The front had, but the rear was on backorder and arrived at the wholesalers on Thursday, so delivery early next week. Of course, the wheel I had dropped off at the shop was the rear.... So next weekend is when I get to refit the rear and take the front out. Did I ever mention how my luck goes? Time to see if my September draining of fuel tanks, filling them with aspen two stroke mix, running the carbs dry and draining off the two stroke mix again worked. No visible rust spots in tanks, so the two stroke oil film has done its job and protected them. But will they start easily, or be the usual pain in the ass after their long winter sleep. Little yeller is to be the first to try. Refitted the battery, refilled the tank with fresh fuel. Away she went second kick. I will call that a success. I will bring the VFR back to life when I get the wheels refitted, then taxed 1st April. Then it is just the DT175mx to bring back to life. Job done.

Time for the acid test for the new method of storing my bikes away for winter. Does it work, or will it be a lot of messing around as usual. Little yeller is to be the guinea pig. Battery fitted, fresh fuel in the tank, fuel tap on. Give it a minute to fill the carb... Kick.... Kick ring a ding ding ding. Away she went. Success. Pumped up the tyres, checked the lights, warmed her up and out for my first 20 miles of motorcycle hooning in 2025. What a hoot to ride as ever. 45mph feels like 90. What a sweet little bike. I absolutely dwarf the tiny poor thing. Seat does not come much higher than my knees.

I still have DCS... Very much more realistic, but less pretty to look at.

Well. No flying tales for the foreseeable future. Asobo released a major update to rectify many of the broken parts and squash many of the bugs present in the sim yesterday. It completely broke it. Unplayable.

IRC Ditchfinders.

300MBs

Flew 200 odd miles in a very stiff headwind to gothenburg. Gave up. Extreme demand on the servers made major cities look like construction sites and all the terrain very blurry. Waste of time today.. It was obviously a very busy day..... Sometimes the sim is stunning, and yet other times, completely crap.

Metar for Stockholm is pretty good. 12kt crosswind from the right, and unlimited visibility, no cloud. Time to fly.. filed my flightplan. To avoid overflying places again that I flew over on my way here, my route home is: Stockholm Gothenberg. Copenhagen. Olstrup. Hamburg. Lille. Calais Leeds.

One of the problems of a 7 hr long flight is that you suddenly find the prospect of having to get the aircraft home again a bit daunting. I think I will do it in stages. Meanwhile, have a vid about a major theme in my flying stories. Ryan is a shit hot bush pilot.