Just got back to work after going to Naples Florida for Spring Break with the kids. I can sit on the beach for about 30 seconds, so I played golf and went to the SAFARI FACTORY for a day. As always Delane and Bobby were welcoming hosts. I even got to fly for an hour or two. My hovering was much better and it was really windy.
As a real treat I got to meet Murray Sweet one of the original developers of the Safari. Murray is a machinist par excellance. He had just completed making a fixture for machining the main rotor spindle. This was a big step forward in keeping the costs down. As a fellow machinist this part was a real problem to fixture and he did it right.
One of my goals was to investigate the problems with the tail rotor drive at the transmission. I had heard reports of failures with very low time. I spoke with Murray again today to discuss some ideas I had for a solution. He agreed with my assesment and it looks like a simple change to a thrust bearing behind the gear may be the answer. This along with proper assemble and backlash. More on this later as it develops.
I have been procrastinating on finishing the wiring on the cyclic and collective. I was done with the "bench work" and now had to crawl around on my head inside the ship. As with most things the thinking about it was worse than the actual job. I made all of the connections in 2 hours. I still have to wire up the solenoid board.
