The cowl took most of the initial brunt force of the field overturn 2 years ago but was beautifully restored by Roger (Doggett) a master craftsman at Priory Farm.

The repair had involved beefing up and neatening my slightly squared openings i to more curved and streamlined affairs

This, in turn, had slightly unbalance the 1/3 to 2/3 intake to exit ratio for cooling.

Cooling is most definitely a black art ! But generally you start with intake hole surface area measures ..and then make sure your exit areas are twice that ..1/3 – 2/3

As they had altered ..and as I was so so keen to gly post the major repair .. I did what my good and decent engineer would do .. black gaffa tapped up the orifice, clear prop and flew !!

Now ..10 months on ..(ok thats a bit longer than it should have taken) .. ive changed to add a thin metal gurney style plate

The theory is, that the slight (and yet to be adjusted) lip on the metal creates a drop in pressure behind the plate and so aids the exit of air meaning your hols probably dont have to be so large !

Ive started with a very small bend .. as it just flat gaffa tape before !

Haven’t used the old metal cutters since the build. Useful to make some small backing plates for the heat resistant rubber flanges where small washers just aint up to the job.

Next annual is due mid July and the Pernit October

Time to review things and catch up on a few small niggles. The problem, now she’s flying, is you dont want down time .. pop up to the field and think .. ill do that bit later .. just fly her now ..

Its been great to get loads of landings and circuits in this year plus a few fly aways so its good to get all these checks done, albeit a few have been done as i go ..this brings it all together

There aren’t standard annual maintenance schedules per se but the LAA produce a useful 150 hour , 12 month checklist, so im using that plus adding some bits ..like dihedral and incidence checks

Nice to be 0.25 degree out .. but balanced .. so maybe just the floor or wayshe was sitting

Then deflections…Elevator … Aileron and Rudder

Up aileron

Down aileron

Bungees..check for movement and condition..this one was knly replaced recently post smoke baby oil wetting

Time to jack up and remove the wheels for brake checks. The Ranger doesn’t have jacking points as such but ive use the block of wood and trolley jack method for years and it works well.. as long as you chock both other main and tailwheel.

The pads wear very little .. as my first few months on trailing my heels on the brakes gave way to learning how to taxy properly and use any momentum or friction inertia to control speed better

I still get it wrong sometimes when the wind isn’t quite as expected but also use natural resistance of grass to slow parking.

Anyway .. if you do heel the brakes hard you get an awful screech which is a bit embarrassing 😳

You can see almost zero wear on the pads and a spray and tidy up of any dust around the fittings and inside the hub .. remove and clean spacer and light re grease and its all done

Final check around this area was tyre pressures… running at a whopping 11psi (bot the 25-30 in my first post build few months !) No wonder it was squirrely on Jerseys ling tarmac runway !

Anyway, both were down about 3 ot 4 PSI .. easy check now Sam has bought me a nifty little hand held pressure checker.

My second Jabiru 2200, bought fromShetland, has reached 50 hours and has just had its second oil change

It’s proving to be a great engine ..as I continue to pre prep the Rotax 912

Some shots of one of the many test flights conducted in the early days.

This one with my son Sam, who helped not only in many parts of the construction but also in logging various bits on test flights.

Flying the Ranger 2 up has never been super fast but Sam is pretty light so it used to nip around ..even though I had yet to put the wing root fillets in place !

Niw the engine radiators and exhaust are in place in the mock up jig we need to get much more accurate measurements for the proposed cowls.

The recent photos from Christophe in France have been a great help and will defiantly assist the next steps over here in England

The best way to get accurate measurements is to remove the Jabiru engine and so provide a better access to the clear bulkhead areas

I normally remove the engine from the engine frame but this time it seemed better to take the engine plus frame as one

Tricky keeping the exhaust and oil radiator in situ and taking it down to floor level safely.

Post this removal, the guys from Competition Fabrication will measure after which I can refit the Jabiru whilst the cowls are built

Its a time of tidying up and making sure ive got copies of things before deleting!

Way back … this was a series of shots that the factory put out to show jist what you received when you embarked on such a programme !

The undercarriage with plates and bolts and tyres and tubes … now, 10 years on, some of these bits have been replaced .. a bent leg (following a tow by the Jersey Airport firecracker over a speed bump !) .. at least 3 sets of new tyres .. all that taxying at Jersey wore the tyres out …

Plus done new rubber bungees post the baby oil from the smoke system making them all floppy!

Elevator parts … i ended up thinking I needed to use the whole curved trailing edge ! .. so I now officially have the largest Sherwood Ranger elevator ! Great .. flies hands off !

Over the years ive lost many caps.

The first was over our house in Jersey .. flying with my son … pulling the aircraft around to stay in focus on the house, your instinct is to pull your head back and start to look for the ground to the side and below you.

Eventually, you bring your head back into line and, invariably, raise your eye line

This has the effect of getting a smidgen of wind under the peak ..and woosh … the cap is gone

The first one ended in a field and was never found

The one in the pictire above was in the bay of St Ouen just off runway centreline. Id been asked by a local commercial pilot if I could do a fly by of his wedding reception.

Stupidly (ney Honestly) I advised ATC that I was doing 2 fly pasts, offshore, N of the runway centreline. At the hold and about 2 minutes to the scheduled reception time, ATC advised they were holding me whilst they decided if this constituted a ‘flying display’ !

Minutes passed … and eventually I was cleared to line up

Pulled up and right.. a sort of part heading towards Guernsey, and could see people just coming out for the reception. I peeled over and around (this era was pre smoke .. which sort of would have classed as a ‘display’)

I think this was one of the first time I flew through my own prop wash in the Ranger. It was VERY pronounced and getting a rather large dip whist about 500m offshore was quite alarming …

Pulling up and away into a turn and this shot shows what happened to the cap ! Never to be found again !

A more recent one was in Norfolk .. about September 2025 … just departing with my son and into the circuit and turning to see who was departing behind us .. cap went and I thought oh no not another …

As I looked around.. in the small rear view mirror I have for the smoke system, I could see the cap was wrapped around the tailplane rigging!..

We pulled around onto a long gentle curved approach..trying to keep the cap in situ

All was fine until the round out .. and the change in air flow and reduction in power ..and off it flew.

We touched and I left my son in the front on tickover on the ground whilst I ran back and jumped the ditch and across the field to retieve !

First save ! ❤️