| Montly run to see everything is working. | |||
| It had been almost a month since last operation. Weather has just not been good for hovering, or i have had something better to do (as if, but something i had to do). Already during the week i decided that i'll be taking the hovercraft tour this weekend no matter how the weather turns out. | |||
| Well, luckily it turned out to be great on Saturday and we took a short ride at the early afternoon. There was no wind sun was shining temperature around 16C (60F). We had three people on board. | |||
| Sitting quietly for a while had caused some bad connections between fuel pump relay and relay foot causing couple of unplanned stops at the beginning, but cleaning the contacts solved the problem and we could head to the bay to start with. Just quick tour around closest islands and we headed back to river. | |||
| I wanted to check the water level and for that i headed to first of the bridges. Current is not so powerful anymore than it was month ago and once we got to the bridge i deciced to go under it and head more upstream. I had done this few times, but this time everything went like they tell in books (if there are any books about this). I have to stop the engine and pull the craft under the bridge while sitting on the fan fay. In addition to this propeller has to be in X-formation for lowest possible height. I stopped the engine and stepped to back. Prop had already stopped to perfect position and we had just enough speed that i was able to just push more speed and try to steer the craft to right direction from large beams of the bridge. | |||
| We got back on cushion after the bridge and proceeded with 30-35km/h (19-21mph) upstream on 10km/h (~6mph) speed limit. I noticed couple of jet ski's coming from other direction and as they saw us they immediately stopped to wait for us. I guess it looks kinda a spooky when something as wide as Explorer is heading your way on river not much wider than Explorer. I also slowed down as i was going to stop for a moment anyway. When we stopped jet ski's started again and we had a little break. We didn't want to go any further since there was about 400m (1/4mile) of even narrower section ahead of us with no chance of making U-turn. And since we didn't have anything to do up there we turned and headed back. | |||
| We passed the same jet ski's just before the bridge. For some reason they had turned back too. This time they didn't stop to wait for us to pass them. It was rather tight to give them enough space and not to spray them and to watch trees hanging above the river at the same time. Well, they had wetsuits so they were prepared for som spray anyway. When getting to the bridge again timing was perfect. Prop stooped to correct position and speed was just right to just push more from beams and start the craft. | |||
| We did 10km (6miles) and spend less than an hour hovering. I don't bother copying the radiotor remarks from last Operation. But something is new on this matter. | |||