BRAVO!!!!!

Old Chief Lynn


"PAUL H" wrote in message
...
from friday 26 april news letter

Wednesday morning saw XH558 taken outside into the crisp spring sunshine
to begin two days of testing of her engines and systems. This will have
all been to the standard procedure document issued for post winter
maintenance.

It includes checking pressures and settings before carrying out a full
engine run at varying power to make adjustments to the throttle settings,
ensuring all four engines deliver equal performance through the full range
of the pilot's controls.

Chief Engineer, Taff Stone, reported this morning that all went well with
no major hitches. All the results are correlated and are now with our
engineering authority.

Other systems checked while the aircraft was out on the running pan
included the Ram Air Turbine, deployed in case of an electrical failure,
the whole AC power generation system, together with a full exercise of all
the powered flight controls, with slight adjustments to satisfy the range
of movement checks.

As we reach this point, may we thank everyone once again who has
contributed in any form, be that financial, or in valuable promotion and
time. We are at this important stage because of you!


All being well, the first check flight of 2013 is only a week or so away.
This all depends on the results of the testing, final sign-off and
hand-over of the aircraft from the engineers to the air crew. We will, of
course, need a suitable weather window. Because of all these factors, our
easiest and quickest form of communication is with our official Twitter
feed. Do monitor over the coming weeks for full details as the testing
programme commences and of course, keep reading these newsletters.

Regular readers will know XH558 requires a structural modification to key
areas of her wings if we are to be able to fly on past this season. With a
huge time and cost implication, together with other component availability
factors, we announced earlier this year we were starting initial design
and investigations with the appointment of Cranfield Aerospace.
We are pleased to report that as a result of their work, full technical
drawings are complete and have already been submitted to several companies
in order for them to look at a tooling and production cost. From this, we
can continue to evaluate the costs and viability of this complex
modification to assess any extension to XH558's flying life. We continue
to pursue this with great energy and will bring you more updates just as
soon as any developments arise.