14.03.2016: I have spent the whole weekend installing the new oil, water and fuel hoses in my plane, as well as doing the annual check and 200 hrs maintenance. Today, with the help of our mechanic, I put the engine back into service, synchronized the carburettors and finished all the paperwork.
Below a picture of the new hoses.
I noticed in the parts catalogue of CzechSportAircraft that they are now installing fire sleeves on the oil hoses, so I did that too. In addition Rotax now uses some kind of fire sleeves on the lower water hoses, so I installed them as well. Below the old and the new (with fire sleeve) lower water hoses.
Replacing the hoses was easier than I thought, the only problem was that I swapped two oil hoses, preventing the oil from circulating properly. Fortunately we noticed it in time. The other problem was that the gascolator was leaking. That was easy to fix once I noticed that the gascolator seal had shrunk by around 5 mm in diameter during the time it was not fuel soaked.
To verify that I had done the work properly I went on a 45 minutes check flight, which confirmed that everything is ok again.
20.03.2016: Finally spring seems to be getting closer, we had nearly 15 degrees today. It was pretty hazy below 4’500 ft, but great sunshine above, so I went on a little tour to the alps.
Below the haze, which limited visibility to maybe 3 to 5 km.
And this is what it looked like once I was above 4’500 ft.
I climbed to 12’500 ft, engaged the autopilot, and just enjoyed the scenery.
Even on the Chäserugg, which is only around 2’300 m / 7’500 ft high there were still quite many skiers, considering that the outside temperature in 10’000 ft was 0 C.
I did the usual passing of the Säntis, but was surprised that only very few people were on the terrace enjoying the sun.
Turning back I had to descend again into the haze, what a pitty.
