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After looking over footage recorded on Saturday, i realized that something just isn't right with the skirt system. Explorer goes forward with nose up and aft dragging. Smooth ice causes some of it, but does not completely explain it. |
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| I had thought of checking the skirt trim during the winter anyway, so why not do it right away. | |||||||||||
| After watching Malaysian F1 Grand Prix in the morning and waiting temperature to warm up a bit and yet watching some ski jump we were ready for business. | |||||||||||
| We took some hardware with us and went to hoverport. Wind was chilly, but sun was shining. Idle was again quite high, but engine started easily and i got to smooth ice. This time however idle didn't go back to normal after a while and i did the best i could to control the craft and get it to right spot. | |||||||||||
| We removed the thrust prop for this and pushed couple of logs under the craft while it was on a cushion. After craft was resting on logs we could soon lift it up with hydraulic jacks and adjust the hull to correct height. This was first time since i could see the bottom of the craft for long time and it was still in tact. One of the skids had taken a hit and it had twisted a bit at the aft corner, but nothing too serious. In front there were signs of Friday collision to ice chunk. But i also noticed that i had part of the skirt missing ! | |||||||||||
| Sevtec type of skirt is divided into sections and partition skirt dividing front chambers from large chamber under the craft was torn off and missing. That explained the nose up stance of Explorer i saw on video and difficult turning. We just put the craft up on stands and called it for day. It would take longer than just few hours we had daylight left, not to mention more equipment for skirt patch. Anyway now craft is in a position to make patching and maybe even fix the cracked hull while we are at it. Hope that weather stays good so that we can fix it by latest next Saturday. | |||||||||||
| Clip #31 - Skirt/hull damage | Versions: | ||||||||||
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| View of damages on hull and skirt | |||||||||||
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