Messenger force landing in Germany
THose of you who visited G-VFWE @ Kemble on the Sunday will have seen Peter Bishops Messenger G-AJOE - a long-term Kemble resident - depart for its new home in Germany where Peter works on the Airbus project as a stress engineer.
Plenty of stress last week when he lost the donk on climbout from his home base (can't quite remember the name of it..) and greased it into a field.
THe problem was quickly found - the 2 fuel pumps on the Cirrus Major 3 have a single drive (great design that...) and the thing broke = instant engine failure.
At the time of writing, there is a local security guard camping out to prevent the locals from vandalising it (not the most affluent of locations apparently) and Vintec are 'on the case' overhauling some spares.
Fingers crossed Peter will fly it out next week.
He tells me that his girlfriend - with him at the time and a bit nervy of the thing already(!) is unlikely to fly with him again.
Not such a bad thing - us pilots like a nice dinner waiting for us when we get home.
(Just a joke ladies honest!!)
All the best for Peter next week.
HP