Today is the day. It will be my first time out with the JetWing. I had just gotten the carriage back from the mechanic who had tuned the engine up and said that it was in good working order. Time to put it to the test.
I picked up my friend, Steve Gund, at about noon and we proceeded to Caledonia Airport, actually the Houston County Airport not located in Houston. It was a beautiful day, warmish in the high 70’s and got hotter as the afternoon progressed. We were alone at the airport. We parked the Escort at the end of the parking area adjoining a large grassy area. That was good to protect the fabric of the wing. I got the instruction book out, hauled the wing bag to the grassy area, and opened it up. We took the wing out of the bag and assembled the triangular control bar and proceeded from there. Spread the wing, inserted the battens, top and bottom, and the end bars, and tensioned it. It took about an hour to do this, since it was the first time.
Once the wing was assembled, it was time to attach it to the carriage, which was still on the trailer. We unstrapped the carriage and lifted it to the ground. The wing was on its nose and in position to be attached to the carriage. After drawing the carriage with the main post still down to the attach point of the wing, we started to look for the attachment pin. This is what I call the “kingpin” because the entire weight and force of the wing attaches to the carriage and is suspended by this pin. It was nowhere to be found. Since this was the first time assembling the aircraft, we were not even sure what we were looking for. But somewhere either in Tennessee or here, this pin was lost. What to do!
Since my objective for this day was to assemble the aircraft and hopefully taxi it, the absence of the kingpin wasn’t the end of the world. Steve noticed that the safety pin from the trailer hitch would be a poor substitute, but would allow us to attach the wing for now. So we did that.
The wing on (sort of), we turned our attention to getting the engine to start. The battery had not been charged since it came back from the mechanic (should have done that, but hadn’t), so I didn’t know how much “poop” there was in the battery. We chocked and primed the engine and set the throttle to halfway, and started to crank and crank. The kill switch was in what I thought was the “on” position, but the engine did not fire at all. We both were holding the carriage so if the engine did start, it wouldn’t start to run out of control, and possible chop us up in the propeller in the process. But with the engine not starting, we relaxed our grip. Steve looked around to see if something was not set right, and in the process, moved the kill switch to the other position. Immediately the engine started wildly, and we almost lost our grip, but managed to regain control.
After throttling back to idle, I got the helmet on, stripped myself in, and tentatively started to taxi on the grassy strip paralleling the runway. It was rough and hard to control, but I was able to master it, increasing and decreasing the speed. I want the entire way down the taxiway and back. It was fun and encouraging.
After returning, I pulled up and shut off the engine. Steve had taken some pictures, both still and video (he’ll never make a living in photography!), and we rested and talked about our accomplishment. I decided to do another taxi run on the hard surface, so we tried again to start the engine. It would not start, and eventually the battery went dead.
But regardless, it was a satisfying accomplishment for the first time out. I’m pleased with the effort. Now I need to find the kingpin that was missing and figure out how to start the engine consistently.
We returned home. I was physically exhausted, but energized by the experience.
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