Way back in 2019 when I was still running through some handling and performance testing , I was on a routine flight out over the southern coast of Jersey when.the engine suddenly began to feel rough.

It starts with an almost imperceptable rumble .. you cant hear it (above the wind noise) but you feel it through the stick …

Then, because you are around 1,000′ AND over water ..everything is exaggerated … now you are looking at every instrument .. every movement…handling … visual checks from the cockpit .. anything to give you a clue as to what is happening.

The flight had started as a planned 4 or 5 circuits .. cooling had been an issue in the early days and im not sure if by this flight I had finally cracked cooling by upgrading the oil cooler matrix by some 70% size!

Now, habing just banked left over Noirmont onto the (distant) base leg for 26 at Jersey .. I was rapidly running out of ideas as to what might be causing the rough running

Engine speed certainly seemed to make ot worse .. and slowing down was initially ok but then equally vibrating

As I had about 3 minutes to touchdown, I called that this would be a full stop .. but elected not to say why … this was to come back to bite me days

Tower cleared me to final and the usual tight curved approach had a bit more push this time as I was keen to get down. Flaring over the absolute threshold to a nice gentle touchdown and still running rough as I taxied off to the club.

Pulling up outside the club i revved up and down and it shook through rhe frame but all Temps and Pressures spot on. Throttle back to tickover and felt better then mags off.

Jumped out and walked around to see if i had oil smeared down the side or some part of the body flapping and nope.. there it was .. right up front .. a smashed spinner

The immediate thought was call the tower and, about 30 seconds after landing I did. Advising that I appeared to have had some sort of bird strike or failure and didnt appear to have ALL the nose.. assuming the rest of it was now bobbing in the sea off St Aubins.

The tower acknowledged and I continued to dismantle the now shredded spinner… to reassemble and see just how much was missing.

A short time later the crash crew arrived as id seen them perform a runway inspection..and showed me a small (2″ ×3″) piece of fibreglass

The classic Olive Green colour made it obvious where the ancestary came from !

They said they needed to keep it as evidence

Wind forward a couple of days and i was invited by the very friendly ATCO to visit the tower for a chat !

What followed was quite a lesson – to all parties.

Having explained where exactly I was when it happened (ie 1,000′ ove the sea and a mile or two out) i was asked why I hadn’t declared a PAN.

Id said it didnt feel life threatening BUT yes, it was probably tainted by pride as well, you dont wnat to admit that something you’d put together had something wrong

I asked what would they have done if I HAD declared a PAN and they said, simple, we hit the button .. and because of where you are you will get crash crews coning from St Helier along the front (assuming you aren’t going to make the runway).. at the same time crash crews will assemble at the threshold of 26 to equally meet the ‘crash’

Although that all sounded even more intimidating they quite rightly.pointed out thats what the PAN is for and, lets face it, I had no clue what was actually wrong ..or if id make it.

The 2nd significant learning on this was the honesty shared by the tower.

On my arrival and curatiled circuit, they were none the wiser as to why id stopped and was heading back to the club. 30 seconds later when i advisdd of the spinner break up, the (new) controller made a note and continued to vector in a light twin who was quite close behind me on touchdown.

The thought was that he was quite close and wouldn’t want to go around.

Post the Twin landing, another aircraft was cleared to depart just as the Senior ATCO asked why the Ranger had come in early 😳

On hearing the issue, the runway was immediately closed to check for (the soon to be found) FOD !!

This now forms part of both local GA training ..ie talk to the tower ..in good and not so good moments ! And also part of ATCO training to assume the worst and check for bits

If id been in the light twin and so close to touchdown a call to go around would have been no problem vs a tyre blow out or similar.

All good learnings 😀

Now the summer is getting along a bit .. thoughts turn to next steps for the Rotax

its been an underlying step by step sequence as I collect various elements all of which go together to get the bits ready for the big engine switchover

To assist the guys at Competition Fabrication to prep the cowl build i have sourced a spinner, backplate and spigot … this means we can get an accurate line for the front edge of the cowl line.

The new back plate from The Light Aircraft Company in Norfolk has a much deeper groove around the edge so the nose will sit much more snuggly into this.

I can then start to plan the doubling up of throttle cable and choke linkages to run through the bulkhead

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 !