Tyre change time and first service

Well .. it’s just got to 24 hours engine run time .. a whole ‘day’ of engine running ! And about 18 hours of actual flying

I’m getting comfortable with the engine as I get to know it’s handling .. when something is brand new and you have no experience of it you vary between instinctive confidence – IE it’s brand new so what can possibly go wrong to an element of mistrust – cos it’s brand new ! And lots can go wrong with it !

You end up .. hopefully with a healthy mis of BOTH and so each flight you learn and pick up the sounds and handling bits

Last Sunday I flew her around the island for 58 minutes .. mostly over a beautiful blue but deep sea .. still focuses the mind and ears on all those noises .. and she sounded fantastic .. didn’t miss a beat

Anyway … time to change the tyres .. I’ve been running them at a low pressure to prevent too much bounce on the tarmac at Jersey – so about 10-12 psi – they do slow me down quite quickly on the surface but it’s all becoming reasonably predictable

Getting the tyre off however wasn’t !

I thought it would be a quick job having watched my sons factory (Williams F1) do 4 in 2.1 seconds last week !

After 2 hours of sweating and heaving using a proper tyre remover kindly leant by CIAS it still refused to pop off the bead at the hub

After cutting it off and eventually cutting the rim wires it parted company

I realised afterwards it was the first thing I did over 4 years ago so they have probably age hardened AND I didn’t use talc or anything when putting them on ! Now rectified