The Phoenix Rises...Again

...hardy bird readies for flight

I've started on the delayed, yet hopeful, undertaking of restoring the Phoenix 2000 to flying condition following its cart-wheeling crash into the duck pond some while ago.

The wings, which took the brunt of the crash, looked a bit sad with all four mounting points torn out, and the end section of one of the wings snapped off outboard of the flap servo mount. The flaps and ailerons had the hinge screws ripped out, but these should be  relatively easy to glue these back in place.

The tail section, on the other hand, is in remarkably good shape and somehow escaped the violent impact unscathed.

So the main concern, along with making sure everything is aligned so it flies straight, is to enure that the wing mounts are securely reattached so the wings stay on!

The nose-section of the Phoenix fuselage is a bit battered, although no worse I think than from its previous big smash. The propellor and spinner are ok, just needing a wash to get the grit out and so the blades can fold freely.

So far there has been nothing that looks unrepairable, so we'll just have to see how things go...

Lovely Flight

...pity about the landing

Had a lovely flight this morning, just cruising the Phoenix 2000 around. It was a very cold morning with a few high clouds around making for a great sunrise again.

The moon was up as well, so couldn't resist of taking a photo of the Phoenix doing a lunar fly-past. I would love to take some video, but taking photos is hazardous enough, as you can see from the angle the Phoenix is going at.

Unfortunately a close shave with the moon wasn't the only incident...

As usual when cold it's my fingers start going numb, so after a while I was wanting to bring the Phoenix in. For some reason I couldn't get it low enough - two attempts were aborted for fear of the plane floating into the bank around the field.

The downwind leg for a third attempt ended with the left wing clipping a small tree on the boundary. I've just missed the tree that many times that finally colliding with it is no real surprise. However it was going pretty slow and the tumble caused no issues.

So we live to fly another day...