The moment of truth has arrived – rotisserie is completely assembled on the Bocian ….. and after a few adjustments and setting the tail at the right height ….. it works! It does take a bit of muscle to rotate the glider, but on the plus side, there’s zero chance of it getting away from…

Finished tail hoop fixture. We should be able to put the fuselage hoop onto its stand tomorrow.

Made 2 pairs of gussets out of 4 mm steel plate. They are bolted to the rotisserie frame and fuselage attachment stubs, to enable easy removal of the rotisserie hoop from the fuselage. We intend to put the rotisserie hoop onto its roller assy on Monday. Hopefully I’ll also have the tail support ring assy…

Laurie and I participated today and last Tuesday with the Form 2 / 10 Year Survey of our club’s Puchatek VH-GKD under the auspices of Rob Moffat and Laurie Simpkins from Qld. It was my first activity with the recently gained Maintenance Authority from GFA, the ROC (replacement of components) ticket. We were involved in…

Today was “rotisserie meets fuselage day”. Laurie did a great job yet again welding the support struts onto the hoop. We added a couple of flat bar steel straps to connect the bottom of the hoop to the main wheel axle. Don’t get exited, we didn’t really connect to the actual axle, but as luck…

Put bushes into the rotisserie rollers. In particular, the brake screws were quite ineffective because as they were tightened, the rotisserie hoop deflected through the play in the rollers. This is now fixed and the brake setup works ok. Also fitted ball bearings into the bottom rollers that support the hoop, as the rubber rollers…

Laurie brought the steel hoop around, as well as the rotisserie frame which he had made for his Citroen restoration project. The hoop had only been rolled, not welded. Laurie did a great job cutting the hoop to size and then, after alignment, welding the ends together. He also welded the roller trunnions to the…

The 1.5m diameter steel pipe hoop we ordered from Metal Shop Technics is ready, and Laurie will pick it up next Thursday morning. He will then bring it over to Bonnells Bay so we can sort out the details. The fuselage will be supported in the hoop by the conical bores in the carry-through spar…

Rob Moffat informed me that he will be requiring the workshop tidied and our wings removed by 1.Sep. as he and Laurie Simpkins will be conducting a mandatory 10-Year Survey on the clubs Puchatek VH-GKD. It was a foul day, so didn’t mope too much about not being able to fly that day. Instead, rolled…

I was invited by Rob Moffat to join a working bee on the Vintage Gliding NSW Bocian 1E. VGN members Neil Bennett, Peter Rundle and Rob Moffat were there, as well as a couple of ladies. Neil was replacing the undercarriage bungees. This involved a couple of trial and error attempts to get the bungees…