Having had a the dreaded flu for a few weeks it was time to check the torque settings to update the log book during these early test flights and getting her ready for the air test.

With torque set to 32nm pretty much every bolt was spot on .. one or two took one extra crank to bring them up to spec.

Jabiru are renowned for wandering out of torque and it only takes about 20 mins to check all the bolts .. remembering the hidden one inside the rocker cover behind the small grub screw.

One thing I’m not mad about is the lipstick

Its calibrated for the Jabiru 2200 BUT in trike mode … and the Ranger obviously sits on the tail. This means you are constantly making that mental switch on reading.

The sunp is so pitifully small anyway and James (the Chief engineer at TLAC) always used to say just put a piece of thin wood down to the very bottom to see what is actually in there !

Keeping a very close eye on oil levels as I run-through the first high powered climbs and check it on cool down EVERY flight

Over the years its been great to have the chance to fly lots of places with many many people …

Even though the advent of airborne GPS was a relatively late addition for me, apps like SkyDemon have been a revelation

They have simplified not only advance planning but in flight changes due to usual bad weather that usually ‘unexpectedly’ happens in the UK

I was delighted when Skydemon further developed their already amazing software to add auto route tracking over time with a map overlay

This shows mostly Jersey based starting points and flying to various places in amd around the UK as well as France and Luxembourg .. many small airfields with friends to pickup pups or business trips to various European offices