Flying with Marilyn

By Ian Nelson

I could not put it off any longer, after nearly 3 years on the building board, Miss Marilyn II was now in a flying condition. The weather was set fair for the late May Bank Holiday weekend. As usual the Met. was wrong for Saturday…20-25 mph winds (should be holding a RAFMAA competition with those conditions!!). Sunday 29 May, however, was superb. With everything charged up and all controls checked and re-checked it was time to head for Coltishall. I had decided to go to Colt and use the runway there as I did not want to damage the retracts on my local grass flying field.

On arriving at Coltishall I carefully unpacked everything and assembled ‘Marilyn’ re-checking the electrical and air connections. Tag 75 went on the frequency board, a full radio range check was carried out; everything was OK, all controls moved in the correct sense and the u/c and flaps functioned fine. With Algy Yates (from the Colt club) restraining her I got the engine going, he carried her out to the runway area where we carried out a full power nose up check, everything was fine. So here we go….. another control check, tighten the bicycle clips, try to stop shaking. Throttle slowly advanced and she leapt away, the Super Tigre 90 providing more than enough power, touch of down elevator, tail wheel up, swing to the left so touch of right rudder and we had lift off. Initiated a gentle climb out and started a right hand turn…Mmmm feels a little pitchy. Took her to about 3 mistakes high and just got used to handling her. I switched in aileron and elevator rates, that made her a little easier on the sticks. The shakes were beginning to fade now, I was starting to enjoy it. Timer beeped at 5 minutes, time to land. Started a long, gentle, descending right hand turn, gradually reducing the throttle until she settled back on terra firma then cut the engine. Phew! That’s the maiden flight over, now for the analysis.

Full post flight checks including wing and cowl removed looking for things that had vibrated loose; everything was fine. Flight 2 was going to be flap and u/c function. Feeling more confident now I got her into the air with no fuss and climbed to a suitable height (3 mistakes high), slowed her up and selected half flap, she was too high to see the flaps deploy so I brought her lower and tried again, they worked fine, she pitched up very slightly and then settled back into normal flight. Next circuit I went to full flap, again slight pitch up but then settled back to normal. Increasing altitude again I selected u/c up and she picked up speed and handled even better as you would expect. I was now brave enough to execute a couple of low beat ups, she looked great. At 7 minutes I decided to land. On the downwind leg I deployed half flap followed shortly by extending the u/c, onto the final turn, slowing down deployed full flap, she settled nicely onto the runway, boy did I feel good!

Flight 3 saw everything functioned at different attitudes plus a couple of loops and a nice slow roll. Unexpectedly the engine cut at the 7 minute point it was at a safe height but I initiated a downwind approach and just remembered the u/c in time, the wheels locked just as they touched down….that was close. I decided that that was an omen and three flights was enough. On stripping down I found a nut had vibrated loose on the engine and the retract valve had come loose, the tank was half full, or was it half empty!

What’s next? Well as I write this I am carrying out some mods. I have put lock nuts on the engine mount, re-tightened the retract valve on it’s mount and superglued the nut. I have changed the fuel tank for a SLEC (black) about 12 oz. I have had the canopy off and included some more cockpit detail, gun sight and radio boxes. At the time of writing I am fitting undercarriage doors to remove the ‘stalky leg’ look. She will then be ready for her next flight session.

link to archived article - Miss Marilyn Part 1

Ian Nelson

RAFMAA Compsec

email: rafmaa-compsec@rafmaa.co.uk