RE: Airspeed AS 31
Hello; Thursday evening I took the Airspeed out to our field all charged up, I had a tough time getting the GMS 47 running reliably, it seemed when I fueled it up that fuel was running out the exhaust about as fast as I could pump it in. After lots of stick twiddling Me and Mike got itrunning with enough power and a sort of' low idle, so we walked ot out and advanced the throttle. As soon as the wheels left the ground the engine sagged, so I let it back down and the engine cleared and revved up again, so I let it rise slowly while gaining ground speed. After I had it 6 feet high, I felt that I'd better turn soon. I turned it left with the rudder, as it seemed close to the trees at the end of our field. I turned gracefully and was coming towards us when the engine quit
I was only 50 feet high, but I managed to get her lined up for a down wind landing, just about over the end of the runway when at about 5 foot altitude, it just stoped flying and crunched down tail first.
I walked out to pick it up. It was in one piece but both pylons were broken in two places.
I'm thinkiong that I'll replace the pylons with aluminum spars cut from an old lawn chair.
I realise that I stalled it, but first flight, I couldn't have known to expect that the tail would just fall on the stall. Never seen that before.
I'll fix her up and keep her scale, she'll fly again.