Chris had asked to meet at the airport to change the front tyre on his gyroplane, so I headed out early to send in our taxes, then picked Randy up on the way. The wind at Roseville was pretty blustery:
Lincoln was, if anything, worse, so Chris decided not to come over. No worries, we loaded all the crap into the van and drove over to him.
We got there just after he'd finished changing the tyre (I said it was either going to be a 5 minute or a 2 hour job - it seemed it was the former). We went out to lunch, then worked on his brakes when we got back, rebuilding a master cylinder and bleeding them up again. While he was under the plane pumping up the brakes, Chris noticed an oil leak had been coughing oil all down the underside of the plane, so we took the cowling off and looked at the engine - the valve cover gasket on one cylinder was leaking, so I took the cover off and found it a little bent. And the gasket was split. We straightened the cover as best we could and put a new gasket on to hopefully allow Chris to fly while waiting for new covers to come in.
On the way out of Cameron Park, we stopped to talk to Don and see his new flight simulator. When we got back to the van, it wouldn't start. We pushed it out of the way, and I started tinkering. I suspected the gearbox safety switch, and pulled the gearbox covers out. At first glance, it looked fine, but jumpering around the switch got the van to start. I dropped Randy home, then drove home without turning the engine off. Looking into it properly when I got there, I found the wiper part of the switch was worn out. As in a new wiper:
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