Day 37 - In a little pickle

It was time to leave John and the troops at Waxhall private airstrip. Even though I had test flown the trike sole and it was running fine after our fuel starvation issue, I was of course a little apprehensive to take another soul on board. We packed the trike and said our goodbyes. With nil wind we headed for the uphill end of the runway. After a 1 minute full power test on the ground, I released the brake and headed for the skies again. The climb out seemed to take forever, although all was normal. Anna-Klara put me on course for Burlington. It was nice to be in the air and the country was opening up. We flew over farms and small hills and over a fantastic dam.

Still keeping an eye on the engine instruments we flew up to 4000ft and right over a medium sized airfield. On the radio we heard a Private Corporate JET lining up on the runway way below us. The pilot called that he was taking off to the North, clear of us and we watch the JET from way above. It was amazing the climb rate. It was at our height within 2 minutes and gone completely out of sight not much longer after that. Such a great sight to observe from the sky.

We flew on and began our descent into Burlington airport. At 2000ft but not far from the airport we struck issues again. The EGT’s began to rise a little and we experience power loss not within glide distance. I eased the throttle and the EGT came back to normal. I called into the CTAF airport frequency, stating I had engine issues and could I jumped the queue to land. Other aircraft called back saying it was fine and wished us luck!!! Thanks guys!

We landed without issue and where left wondering what to do from here. Unfortunately it was a fairly busy corporate jet type airport where we landed. The airport manager was more of a money grabber than a true aviator a heart. Ironically we had landed at the most unfriendly airport where we needed help the most.

For the first time we felt like in A BIG HOLE. I rang the guys from Airborne and talked them through the issues. I also put out a post one the Trike Internet Groups EnginesUL. With some great ideas I attacked the most obvious part - first cleaning the fuel filter out -of its maintenance schedule. It was full of crap! It might just be that I picked up some dirty fuel. I cleaned the filter and checked a few other things. The test run went fine. We prepared to cautiously head out in the morning opting to stay in a hotel as there was not much love at that airport.