Every year Jersey Aero club hold a charity day for children to come and visit the aero club and, wether permitting, get near to and fly in a local aircraft around the island. All the pilots give up their time and ‘planes to do this and its a great success and such a bit hit with the kids.

I promised to take the Sherwood along so they got a chance to see some real wood and metal close too and they certainly seemed to enjoy the ‘touchability’ of the whole experience !

Airport firecrew were on hand to retrieve her when the end gate was locked on the Sunday preventing me from getting out !

Yes, thats an Easyjet airbus in the background .. that s the sort of think I will e in the circuit with every day … let me see, wake turbulance gap of 6 miles between a 320 Airbus (Medium) and a Sherwood (Mightily light !)

Carried on last night and finally vacated barn number 1 of nearly 2 yeasr worth of bits ! Trying to get organised in the new barn and plan to put wall mounted peg board to store all tools and bits.

Then, had no. 2 son on hand to help – Will.

He started checking all the rudder and elevator fittings to plan and spotted I had missed two small washers … the problem was they were on the back end of hinge supports (the top two) and although the nut end had a washer on , the head end didnt.

Because of the positioning – this meant the rudder had to come off. This came of pretty easily and we corrected my faux pas. My second tin of Duralac is getting a bit crustacious ! not sure I have much more need for more at this time.

With the ‘plane being out of the barn for 24 hours whilst the new barn concrete floor dries, working at night was a challenge but finished the washer repair/adds by 22:30

The fuel connector I purchased has been temporarily strapped in to check length and ultimately fitting at each end. At one end (the Pilot) I need it securing and TLAC provide some parts to do this at the other end I need a clevis to form around the lever arm of the on/off valve.

On my last visit to TLAC I saw an amazing quality build going on and the neat little finishing touches are well worth cribbing here !

Instead of a fiddly securing bracket Alistair (I think that was his name – great guy !) had made a keyhole arrangemnet and slot to allow very positive On/Off valve control

I made  a start on these a few weeks ago but then ran out of time to finish due to Air Show preparation.

The aim is to produce 4 wing pin support brackets to support the longer alloy tube guide.  I prepared one of these I created a short length of alloy tube to allow me to line up the exact position. Unfortunately the shorter stem allowed for some movement which, extrapolated up, mean that I had drilled the hole about 2mm out. This left the wing pin impeding the leading edge and so was no good.  A quick email to Ivor at TLAC and a replacement is in the post along with a  replacement aileron turnbuckle (I managed to cross thread one on the 3rd de-rigging).

Now I have a better more reliable method of aligning holes and have done 2 of these brackets now.

Just need to insert the right angle steel handles so checking with Mike the best way of doing this into the alloy tube. Then I can trim to length and plan to wrap the alloy wing root fairing around.

Had a suddenly planned trip over to visit my very ill mother and take my Dad out for a well earned break. Try to visit Duxford at least every two years … what a simply amazing place .. been 20+ times but it never ceases to amaze.

(I can also admit to crashing a Spitfire here – a Mark 1a … turned to sharply on approach and tip stalled .. ok .. it was a Brian Taylor model ! – from my time when I was a member of the South Cambridgeshire Model club who flew at Duxford)

Notice the Mustang is in my planned colours of Yellow and Olive Green !

Look at the joints holding this fin on above

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Nice 3 point cable support on cross wired Gladiator (I think ?)

Above – Steel braced with turnbuckles – makes it easier than washer packing !

Above – Just like the Chipmunk I used to fly ! G-APLO

Above – so miss flying the old Stampe – this looked quite sporty and forgot how raked the wings were

Jersey resident – Martin Willings Fennec in the background

Beautiful Puss Moth folding wings – with a 150 hp engine – swift !

Above – Mocked up gun my boys say should be on the Sherwood !

Above – Deck landing and 1″ dia bolts are all that support this folded wing !

Above – Sea Fury with all her bits around her … a bulkhead to die for

You look at the rivets on the Sea Fury and can just wonder on the skills of manufacture … the wiring and bracing on the early models .. the folding wing mechanisms and bolts holding hugely heavy wings .. post Sherwood, I never look at ANY engineering in the same light ! It really does open your eyes !

Knuckling down to completing bits ahead of next inspection ….

I have decided to keep the wingtips removable and so have made some ply gussets up so that I can mount small alloy brackets to secure the tips with steel self tappers

Repairs started – Benjamin was over from the UK so he kindly got under the ‘plane and helped secure it for the startboard leg removal.

Looks even more bent when its been taken off ;-(