ZL update Feb 2011

[Steve Sharpe]

ZL was quite busy in 2010, we made it to lots of fly-ins throughout the south and midlands of England and I did a long trip to Cornwall to visit my son.  ZL performed well all the way through.  Paul and I did Oshkosh, had a great time but we were disappointed that no Porterfields made it, understandable I guess considering the inclement start to the week!  I flew in the B17 and we also managed rides in the Trimotor, a Breezy, Cessna 180, Cub and aeros in an Extra 300.

We've fitted a mount for a GPS, which helps us to keep out of the Class A and other airspace not far from our base near London.  I guess we'll need a mode S transponder next. To this end I'm about to fit a Gennipod so that we can have power generated on board instead of having to continually recharge batteries. I've also fitted an LED strobe atop the fin, we've nearly collected the odd aircraft from behind a couple of times recently, so considered it a reasonable precaution, despite it being very expensive (about $400!).

ZL was grounded for 3 months at the end of the year as we were having new stainless steel flying wires hand made in Scotland with an 8 week delivery time, the old ones were looking a bit ragged, probably the originals.  After a dreadful winter weather wise, we are now airborne again, with a mag switch problem at first - took it apart and cleaned the contacts, now OK - and a tendancy for the engine to stop on the rollout when it's cold (which it is right now) - cured by tweaking the mixture up a bit.  At Oshkosh we requested an aircraft history readout from the FAA which arrived on CD (for free!) soon after we got back. So we now know we are the 15th owners, the first one was in Los Angeles, I wonder at which field the plane was originally based.

Best wishes to all Porterfielders for 2011 from over here in the UK. 

[Tom Porterfield]

Steve,

As always, Thanks for sharing ZL with us.

Tom Porterfield