Thorp Air Command - T18.net

Having arrived home after 4 weeks away (in US) thought would be good to see if my bird remembered how to fly. Wheel out into the sun to do normal preflight which I always start by cleaning the windscreen. Spray on the cleaner and give first wipe of what looked like a dusty coat only to find it felt like sand paper and would not remove! Investigation of the rest of the airframe revealed a fine sand paper finish which was light yellow spray dust and not visible at first as my colour is light gold. My hangar MATE had touched up his microlight and did not move or cover mine!

Not a happy chappy . Raced next door to my mate who runs his own maintenance shop to see what I could do. They offered a compound they use to take of overspray called Farecla G3. The overspray is 2 pot epoxy and has had 5 weeks to cure but fortunately my paint is Caprithane and has been on 26 years and is as hard as nails. I have spent 10 hours so far polishing and only have the tail feathers to finish. I did the windscreen first and then went for a fly just to see if the overspry knocked the performance and I could not see any evidence of a drop in speed.

Still muttering but almost over it now!!

Tony Schischka
ZK-VMS T-18C

Sorry to hear your hangar mate was not thinking about what might happen to your airplane. Did he at least apologize?

I remember visiting Joe Penguilly's hangar a few years back. He had bed sheets draped over his plane held in place by a bunch of old telephone books. Kept the dust off quite nicely.

yes he did. Tail feathers now done but brake master cylinder leaking so have that out now. Seals replaced and ready to go back in. Weather rubbish!
Tony S