A few days ago, I cleaned up the trash around the airstrip, and yesterday I got the blade of the lawn mower sharpened.
We are now allowed to reopen the business and so in order to welcome passengers and to fly again, I needed to take care of the grass on the parking area and the runway.
I put the blade back on the lawn mower and dismantled the carburetor to clean it. It was quite dirty and caused to engine to sputter.
20 Minutes later, all the pieces were back together and the engine started on the first pull. Time for my exercise!
It took me a couple of hours yesterday afternoon to do half of the job and another couple of hours this morning to finish it. Here are the before and after pictures:
This picture was taken from the other hand of the runway once the mowing was completed.
While I took care of the runway, my worker took care of the parking area and the side of the road with the grass cutter.
Pushing a lawn mower on a 2% slope for a couple of hours to complete the whole 3000sqm of runway took a toll on me. By the end, I was exhausted and a bit dehydrated because of the heat and the strong sun. But what a satisfaction to see it done.
As I was bringing the lawn mower back to the hangar, I noticed that the wind sock was torn and had had several holes in it. It had lasted a year and half already. I think that's pretty good considering the harsh elements of the Philippines.
So I climbed up the post and replaced it by a brand new bright orange one.
We are now ready to resume the gyrocopter flights. All we need are passengers 🙂