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 ! ❤️