Been having a few squeaky brakes recently so popped in this evening to polish the wings and body down and get the covers on from last week and take a few minutes strapping the main gear together to jack up and have a quick check

Its this sort of easy self do maintenance job that makes owning something like this such a pleasure

It took about 5 minutes to tie the legs (preventing a Bambi !) And then about 1 minute to clean the nut and remove the wheel

First one had no brake dust and was nicely greased so cleaned it all up anyway and regressed and popped the wheel back on

Second one.. port.. looked just the same .. clean as a whistle but .. when I tried to pull the spacer off for cleaning and regressing it didn’t move…

I didn’t want to force and was running out of light in the hangar so did it all back up and will nip back to free it .. investigate and clean and regressed

Possibly explains the graunch noise as brakes bite .. when the hub is against a non moving collar

Nice to be asked last week to do an interview on the ‘plane

The publication in our local paper today (Jersey Evening Post) of an interview I did with one of their reporters Tom Ogg got someone to send in a ground shot photo from Last Saturday evenings twilight smoke flight …

The smoke oil had run out and I was finishing with a couple of circuits … and the sun was well down and the moon looked great from the cockpit … the panel lights were glowing nicely but the aircraft is most definitely NOT a night rated … so time to squeeze one more close bad weather circuit in and land …

A local photographer, David Pierce was photo bombed by my Low fly by .. as he lined up a wonderful shot of the massive moon ….

Cheers David ! .. awesome shot

Trying to figure a neat balance shape in the air.

The problem with a single, slow flying biplane … is you most definitely cannot be in 2 places at once … and for a smoke shaped Heart it’s handy to have 2 aircraft emitting … in sequence

This first attempt … I choreographed inside the cockpit .. figuring if I did it INTO wind .. then the drift wouldn’t make it lopsided … so smoke on and started at the ‘top’ of the heart .. pulling right and down BUT opening up the turn .. so it made he longer side of the heart vs a circle

Then, when you ‘think’ you are at the bottom … heave your head around …tricky in a full harness … and see if you can see where the initial smoke turn banked away ….now SMOKE OFF and belt back up the centre vertical of the heart to that start point … and then peel off to bank the other way …remembering to turn the SMOKE ON !

With credit to my very good friend Pam for capturing some great video footage from St Ouens Bay.. looking back towards the airport overhead…

Looks like I stopped the smoke fractionally early at the foot of the heart ❤

Gorgeous evening with fantastic light …