Spitfire on the road Maintenance

[Bill Greenwood]

I flew from Breckenridge up to Slaton near Lubbock for their airshow. The weather has been great today and it was a nice little airshow: Howard in the Bearcat, Tora, Bill? the jet glider act, AN-2, various other acro and waribird acts, nice runway, good food including a local bakery, and a pretty good crowd. All great until I got ready to fly, then the runup was not smooth on one mag. Last time this happened was at Ellington 2004 and it turned out to be a plug the elctrode was closed on. The devil was sittiing on my shoulder telling me to go anyway, it'll clear in the air. Common sense prevailed and I taxied back in. Then frustration, we got it in the hangar, got lots of help, but a fastener hung up and we can not get either the side cowl off to check the mag or top cowl off to check plugs. Cowls off the rest would be only about an hour job. So I'm stuck for now and wasting all this good weather here and all the way home. I may have to wait for Ray the Merlin whiz to come from Colo.

[Matt Gunsch]

Bill, if you were closer to Az, I would hop on the Goldwing and see what I could do, but you are a 2 day ride from here.

[Lynn Allen]

We were in Baton Rouge last night and they were really happy that you stop by there and spent some time with them. Did you go to Don's Seafood? Best ever Did you see the HD TV at Avitat, wow

Fly Safe,

Lynn

[Bill Greenwood]

Lynn Thanks, that Avitat FBO at Batom Rouge was really nice and made being stranded by weather ok. Matt, thanks for the thought, take care.

[Bill Greenwood]

All it took was the laying on of hands by super brit, and it is Friday and I am back in Colorado, actually will be spending a few days over on the front range here or in the Boulder area.. Ray and I returned to Slayton, Texas on Thurs, and within about an hour and a half, Ray had all the leads off and the top plugs out. All it took is some specially made wrenches able to reach at a right angle, and about 35 years experience working on warbirds. The top port plug side plug was fouled, so all new ones were installed and in about 4 hours it was cowled back up, and test run ok. Then off to a big steak dinner. Today I flew back and the weather was, and is really nice up here. Now i've got to give it a good bath and next time I fly go do some acro practice since I have the drop tank off.