I was the flying Spanner and the budget consious Boss, along the way I re-fitted an Altenator that was looking to take a long drop in the Indian Ocean, a Stater Benbix and later on In Bali I was able to get the exhuast Welded up and re-fitted and in Mt ISA I replased two and cleaned 4 of the Six fuel filters and changes a second Starter Pinion/bendix, the rest of the time I spent pumping fuel in to the wings to keep us in the air. We had a spare Starter and a spare bendix , Spare wheel assy , brake parts Engine Gaskets and a full set of tools. (Weight is not a problem in a Trislander)A spare Altinator and just about every Instrtment in the A/C exsept a Encoder which gave touble intill we were able to get it fixed In the M.E. and calibrated on the way out of KL.
I spent 7 weeks in Greece geting the A/C ready with the help of My daughter and Mr BN-TIM as We now call him. It had been Opperating Zimbabwea and Botswana befor it was taken to Greece in 2001 and was out of the Air for 8 years after the 11th September Attacks put a halt on GA in Europe.
We had budgeted for 14 hours Endurance @ 180 L/H Knowing we had a 12 hour Leg but in reality we had 16 hours Plus , as we were able to run it lean of peek most of the way at 9,000 feet . The Trislander has to be one of the easest A/C to Ferry as there is so much room in sidde for lots and lots of Fuel. The ferry system Fed fuel in to the Main tanks via two diffrent sets of Hoses and 4 diffrent pumps, so we had buit in redundcy every were. We even had a Old "Drumn Good" hand pump if the electrics failed (or if the Refulers were contakerass as in Kalkata) There was a back up 25 AH battery too and in fact just one of the 3 Elc pumps was suficent to Keep all 3 engines runing off the main tanks for up 10 hours with the level only droping by 11 Galeo in each tank; but most of the time we ran the mains down to 40 Gals and pumped them back up to 50 Gals' each hour or so. I figured that if I keept the tanks 2/3 full i would still have time to fix any Fuel Transfer Problems well befor it got quiet !
For pix you can go to
www.deamer.org and follow the JY-OO19 Greece to Vanuatu Link and look at the Vidio on our Coconut oil project Mr Richard Branson mentioned in his new Book.
Blue skies
Spanner