Push button above gear handle

To remove any confusion about he red push button above the gear handle who have normaly a break away wire, when is pushed, let you pull the gear handle up, retract the gear, as soon as you have 150 Hpz of pressure in your hydraulic system by bypassing the ground safety switch. After take off if the gear does not want to go up because the ground safety switch does not function normaly, you can push the red button, pull up the gear handle, the gear will go up. That function was made too in case you do not have any braking capabilities normal or emergency and you need to stop the aircraft.
It will bypass the ground safety switch on the left main landing gear either on the ground or in the air with at leat 150 hpz of hydraulic pressure, the gear will retract.

Lost of main hydraulic pressure during flight

It can happen to loose rapidely the main hydraulic pressure system during flight. It can be a broken hydraulic line but usualy it is when you do negative G's and use the hydraulic system at the same time( ailerons boost or speed brakes). Most of the time the hydraulic pump cavitate.
If you follow the procedures .... it is good but it can take a long time and if you are short of fuel...
One procedure not descibed is to reduce the fouga at 140KTS and drop the gear down normaly.
The gear will come down slowly , will lock down and the main hydraulic pressure system will
go back up.
It will be faster than some procedures which tell you to wait 20 minutes.

Engine oil for Marbore VI

Oil for Marbore VI is O-150 or O-148 equivalent to MIL-L-7808 where is the BP 2389 available everywhere.

Jack pad for fouga

To be able to jack the Fouga you need 3 or 4 jack pads. Metric bolts M14 x 1.5 length 40mm will do the same job. You can find some at your hardware store for $12.00 the all set of 4.
You will have to rond the head with a grinder to fit the cup of the jack. If you do not find some , look at :
http://www.boltdepot.com/product.aspx?cc=20&cs=80&cm=111&cd=1384

What is the time on my Fouga engines ?

A lot of people does not know how to read and understand the French military logbooks.
Red warning : No original logbooks ....
If you have a Fouga with the original French log books I can help you to find out how many hours your engines have SMOH and time on the different components, if your engines are the ones when the Fouga left the French Air Force or changed since then.
Please no dealers, only private owners.

And if you need real maintenance on your engine done by the books you can contact Christian Berard who was on charge of the Marbore II and VI within the French Air Force and still working on thoses engines in Europe : christianberard2@wanadoo.fr

Fouga braking

Do not forget to service the brake cylinders at the back of each brake pedal.
If they running out of fluid ... no more normal braking

Generator or hydraulic pump disconnect

It's a problem with the Fouga that the generator or hydraulic pump can disconnect from the accessory gear box by the mechanical disconnect inside the accessory gear box.
First if generator do not suck air by the inlet ... it is diconnected
If you do not have hydraulic pressure and your hydraulic reservoir is serviced , crack the outlet line of your pump and if no fluid or air is comming out... hydraulic pump is disconnected.
You can have some other problems but theses ones will occure some time or an other

Starting problems with engines

Lately a couple of Fouga CM170 had some starting problems .

You can have the micro pump who does not turn or you do not have ignition because you can have some carbon deposit on the contacts of the relay 29K or 30K. Does not matter if you have the voltage at the connector , if you do not have the amperage for the micro pump or for the ignitor boxes due to the carbon deposit on the contacs of thoses relays the engine will not start.

You can troubleshoot by disconnecting the cannon plug of the micro pump and press on the ignition button to hear the cracking sound of the ignitors.

If no sound swap igniton box of the other engine and try again.

To check the micro pump disconnect both cannon plugs of the ignitors boxes and if it turns remember to have fuel flow out of the micro pump you wil need to advance the cutoff lever. If no luck with that troubleshooting......
Solution: replace relay 29K and 30K in the rear distribution box 1X by a relay 40 or 50 AMPs SPST or DPST that you can find on E-bay for $40.00ea and no more starting problems