Don’t sit on my Bantam nose. Oops – too late!

Bantam ZK-FTJWhile doing a factory upgrade on the tail fin of the Skyleader GP One, one of the local U-Fly instructors asked me to repair a nasty crack in the nose cone of his Bantam microlight. A customer had sat down on it while waiting in the hangar, causing it to collapse under the abnormal load. A big crack had appeared in the fibreglass.

Since I already had all my glassing tools and supplies on hand, it was very quick to sand, mask and glass the crack. The owner was delighted to have a professional job done, instead of attacking it himself with a ‘surfboard repair kit’ from the local hardware store.

carbon VTU upgrade

VTU transition piece glued (GP One 8005005 S) 2 smlThe Skyleader factory asked me to fit an upgrade to the VTU (vertical tail unit) of SkyFreedom Aviation’s GP One demo aircraft.

The beautifully-made carbon and foam sandwich parts duly arrived after New Year. I fitted them under the supervision of Bill Barber (of Snark fame) and Callum Smith (Twenty24 Aircraft Maintenance). The extra ribs and the transition piece connecting the boom to the leading edge of the VTU have hugely stiffened the whole tail.