New years eve and most of the Keepit Pilots went back to wherever they come from, leaving only a few of us to see in the new year here.
No flying as we were working on trying to solve the tug problem all day. John Wakefield came out and with Boris's help eventually got it working again.
It was a very windy day anyway - so it was no great loss not to fly, but for a while we thought we would be without a tug again. The culprit turned out to be a tiny o ring in a fuel drain which was allowing the system to suck air. We also found a loose fuel line, which didn't help either.
Gerhard spent the day working on the Puchatek, installing the new xcom radio and microphones. It was a big job, and took about three days altogether. We also took out the front rudder pedals and cleaned off all the gunk that someone had covered them in. When reinstalling them, we found that it is the tension in the rudder cables that makes them difficult to move, not the sliding mechanism at all. So please please please do NOT apply grease silicon graphite or any other lubricant to the slider. It only makes it worse.
At the end of a long hot day, Boris did a test flight of the tug. After "chasing the kangaroos off the strip" (looked like a beat up to me) he came back grinning from ear to ear, and pronounced the tug fit to fly again!
Hans spent the whole day on the tractor - many thanks Hans. However we still need to mow runways 20, 27 and 24 and 27 at the north end, if anyone has some spare time!
Six of us saw in the new year round a small bonfire with a few beers and red wines!
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