NEriks Blog

Formation flying with two SK 50

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:27:00 GMT

Last Friday, we made a formation flight with two SK 50 from Västerås Airport Flying Museum. Starting from Västerås/ESOW runway 01, turned over Västerås City, low pass over Västerås/ESOW, towards Kjula/ESSU for a low pass and then back to Västerås/ESOW again.

Crew of SE-IGO: Curt Cronerud (pilot), Tommy Olsson (film).
Crew of SE-IGL: Niklas Eriksson (pilot) Tobias Andersson (copilot)

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Tags: Saab,91,Safir,Flyg,Pilot,SK50,SK 50,SK-50,SE-IGL,Flygträning,formationsflygning,Formation,flying

More flight training!

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 07:40:00 GMT

More flight training ... The short movie clip below was shot last Monday by Tommy Olsson. Unfortunately, we got some restrictions by the ATC because we had traffic below us ...

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Tags: Saab,91,Safir,Flyg,Pilot,SK50,SK 50,SK-50,SE-IGL,Flygträning

Time for some flight training ...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:16:00 GMT

Oops! I just saw that it was over a year ago since I wrote the last post in my blog. Unfortunately, I am really lousy at keeping the blog updated ... Time for an update! Below is a short movie clip that a good friend of mine (Tommy Olsson) shot last Thursday when I went out for some flight training.

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Tags: Saab,91,Safir,Flyg,Pilot,SK50,SK 50,SK-50,SE-IGL,Flygträning

Cumulus hunting!

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:48:00 GMT

In recent days I have felt an enormous frustration of not being able to fly because of bad weather. Today the weather finally improved which made is possible to get our Saab 91B Safir airborne again! The aircraft hasn't been in the air for over a week so it was about time! The flight was mostly devoted to practice split-s, spin and chandelle maneuvers. At the end of the flight I also managed to hunt some cumulus clouds ;-)

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Tags: Saab,91,Safir,SK50,SK 50,SK-50,Flyg,Pilot,SE-IGL,Flygträning

Power to the Moog Prodigy!

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:02:00 GMT

A while ago I acquired a very nice Moog Prodigy from a client of mine. The only problem was that it lacked its power transformer. The Moog Prodigy is normally equipped with an internal power transformer but by some unknown reason my Prodigy had been modified with an external transformer! The actual modification had also been done in a rather unprofessional manner so I decided to restore the synthesizer with a new internal transformer.

Since I didn't have the original transformer for the Prodigy I decided to use a small toroidal transformer. Once the transformer was installed the synthesizer was calibrated and tuned.

The Prodigy is a really nice little synthesizer which is perfect for live gigs when you need a vintage analogue synthesizer. A Moog Minimoog Model D is probably a better choice sound-wise, but has the disadvantage of being more fragile and far more valuable for a life on the road. A modern alternative to the Minimoog Model D and the Prodigy is obviously the Moog Little Phatty ...

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Barbecuing @ Eskilstuna/Kjula airport

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:23:00 GMT

Yesterday I visited Eksilstuna / Kjula (ESSU) airport to attend a small barbecue event organized by the local flying club (Eskilstuna Motorflygklubb). A friend of mine also came by in his SAAB 91B Safir. It's not every day you see two almost identical SAAB 91B Safir at the airport so I took the opportunity to take some pictures.

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Tags: Saab,91,Safir,SK50,SK 50,SK-50,Flyg,Pilot,SE-IGL,Flygträning

Experimental aviation photage ...

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:55:00 GMT

Last Wednesday, the following video-clip was shot during a short flight from Stockholm/Västerås Airport(ESOW) to Eskilstuna/Kjula Airport (ESSU). The video was shot by Michael Odälv who is a very good friend of mine.

The aircraft in the video-clip above is a SAAB 91B Safir, formerly used as a military trainer by the Swedish Air Force. The Swedish Air Force gave the SAAB 91B Safir the military type designation SK-50(B). The aircraft in the video-clip was manufactured in 1953 and placed as a military trainer at F5/Ljungbyhed, Sweden. The aircraft was assigned the military registration 50053 and was marked F5-53. At the beginning of the 70th century, the Swedish Air Force replaced the SK-50 with the SK-61 (Bulldog). The SK-50's previously used as trainers was moved out to different squadrons for continued service as trainers and liaison aircrafts. The 50053 was moved from F5/Ljungbyhed to F13/Bråvalla where the aircraft was repainted from yellow to green and labeled F13-73. After 28 years of service in the Swedish Air Force the aircraft was sold and registered as SE-IGL by the Swedish Civil Aviation Authorities. In the early 2000's the aircraft was renovated to the original color and original markings. The aircraft is currently owned by NEriks Air, which is a side-business to NEriks Audio. During the past year the aircraft has been grounded due to a lot of technical issues but in early June this year, we finally managed to get the aircraft airworthy with a lot of help from Per-Åge Håkans (Aero Services) in Halmstad, Sweden (ESMT). The aircraft currently resides at Västerås Aircraft Museum where it belongs to the collection of vintage flying aircrafts.

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Working with a vintage aircraft ...

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:10:00 GMT

Today I finally got some time off to spend at the airport working on a vintage aircraft (Saab 91B Safir). We've had some minor issues with the engine which we hopefully have managed to fix. Today I tested the engine and it seems to work as expected.

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Moog Modular maintenance

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 14:17:00 GMT

I often get questions from various musicians about renting out gear from my studio. One of the most sought-after instruments that I have is my old Moog Modular system. The system is basically a standard Moog System 35 with a sequencer complement cabinet. Although the system is over 30 years old I rarely have any major issues with it. As long as the system is kept in one place and not moved around between different studios it normally stays in a functional state for a very long period of time. Occasionally the system needs to be fine-tuned but that's merely a minor issue ...

A few years back the original power-supply of my Moog system suddenly decided to give in during a tuning session of the oscillators. After troubleshooting the original power supply I finally decided to repace it with a new one from Power One.

Replacing the old power supply proved difficult because the connections of the new power supply did not fit the internal power harness of the cabinet. Rewiring the internal power harness wasn't an option since I wanted to keep the system as close to original as possible. The solution was to build a new power supply by reusing the enclosure of the original power supply. The electronics of the original power supply was removed from its enclosure to give room for the new power supply.

The new power supply was built by using four independent power supplies (NEriks PSU-1) connected and configured to supply +12V, -6V, +15V and -15V to the system.

In order to dissipate heat from the voltage regulators a heat sink was constructed from an 8 mm thick aluminum plate.

The circuit boards of the power supply was mounted on the heat sink plate which was installed in the old enclosure. The original transformer was reused as well as parts of the internal wiring and the output connector.

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One of the best!

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 12:03:00 GMT

A few months ago I received a broken Moog Sonic 6 from a client in Norway. I've repaired a few Moog Sonic 6's in the past but I have never worked with an early revision of the Moog Sonic 6 before.

The Moog Sonic 6 is a duo-phonic analogue synthesizer manufactured by Moog Music in the 70's. The Sonic 6 was a result of a company merge between R.A Moog and MuSonics, which previously had been developing a synthesizer called the MuSonics Sonic 5 The early revision of the Moog Sonic 6 is equipped with the same type of diode-ladder filter used in its predecessor, the MuSonic Sonic 5. Comparing an early revision of the Moog Sonic 6 with a later revision (with a serial number above 1264) one will most certainly notice that they sound a bit different from each other.

Apart from the diode-ladder filter there are a few other details that also differs from the later revision. This made the repair process more challenging since I only had the service manual of the later revision at hand.

Having the Moog Sonic 6 in my workshop for some time I've become rather attached to it. I really like the design of the synthesizer which offers both extensive modulation capabilities and a very powerful sound. The only thing that really bothers me is the AR (ASR) type of envelope generator which sometimes feels a bit limited. All-in-all I think that the Moog Sonic 6 (especially the early revision with the diode-ladder filter) is one of the best Moog-synthesizers ever produced.

For more information about the Moog Sonic 6, please read this excellent article about the Moog Sonic 6, written by Gordon Reid.

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