Not a terribly attractive solution, I'm afraid, but a pragmatic one. The Aware+'s gps screen is not as easy to see in sunlight as the manufacturers claim, which made it necessary for me to shield it with my hand when reading it last week.

So I made this visor out of corroflute covered in insulating tape. I fitted velcro to it so that it can be quickly detached on the ground.

It is only a prototype, but as with the prototype rotating map (made from a flowerpot), it will probably stay in use.

GPS power from trike

I want to run my GPS from my trike's battery and couldn't find a hard-wire kit, so I have got these two items off ebay and I am actually rather pleased with them. They snap together to provide an accessory socket (like a car cigarette lighter socket) for my GPS charger to fit into. It is wired to reduce the 12V down to 5 and the output will be 1.3amps. As it is, the Aware+ will only run for about half an hour on its internal battery (and then there is the hassle of charging). My solution will give it continuous power.

The snap connectors can also be disconnected to allow me to attach an Optimate charger, which will mean being able to charge the battery without cutting the lock-wire which keeps the connections secured.

Must remember to disconnect when not running the engine, though!

precision hedge-hopping

Dave Broom asked me today if I fancied competing when Sutton Meadows hosts the Nationals in a fortnight. I think it may be fun. He said there may be an event with precision landings, touch and go's etc, so this evening, when the air was smoother I did about ten tight circuits at no more than about 250'.....and did some leg extending at 150' on base; I love it at that height!

Earlier in the day Peter Robinson urged me to make more of the Dragonfly's thermalling capabilities and I discussed this with Nigel who is about 12 hours into training but seems to have a good grasp of matters aviation and who had some advice about thermals, which I then went on to try out North East of the airfield. It is a bit hairy pushing the bar out and doing a 60 degree banking turn with power on idle...you fear the wing will stall, but doing that I managed to get about 500' per minute climb, which I reckon is pretty good for a novice.


I wanted to get quickly above 2000' because, according to the Notam for RAF Wyton, a Hurricane of the BBMF was due through at 15.30 hrs (surface to 2000') and I wanted to be safely clear, but airborn. I listened in on 134.05 mhz VHF to all the traffic being asked to hold and most of them were at about 3,500'. Goes to show how many pilots do not check their Notams, that so many had been quite unaware it would be coming through when they asked for Matz penetration!

I wanted to be outside the 3 mile exclusion but able to get a good view - in the air. In the end, though, I heard it on the radio but didn't see it at all, so goodness knows what became of it. Consequently I didn't get the snap on the camera very kindly lent to me by Richard (the accountant whose GT450 is a capital expense!).

Congrats are due today to someone I won't name (in case he'd rather I didn't) who has finally qualified after 12 years! He has had several set-backs over the years, but when his wife threatened to put his XL on ebay, decided it was time he finished the licence off; though apparently he has passed his GFT before and timed-out having forgotten to put in his paperwork. Impossible to imagine forgetting! But I suppose not everyone is as obsessed as I am.

A private air display before the Queen got to see it

photo cheekily used without permission

Today I went to lunch at Lizzie's, principally because her garden is on the flightpath from the North Sea to London for the Queen's Birthday Flypast. I had hoped to see the BBMF Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster, but the Lanc is out of action having its undercarriage repaired and the other two were holding over Cambridge, ready to shoot straight south, to beat the faster aircraft there. But it was still very exciting to see the various formations of Tornados, VC10 in-flight refuellers, a Nimrod (hurrah!), a Tristar, Typhoons and the Red Arrows - shooting over at low level.

I took my VHF radio with me just in case I could catch something of them talking to Wattisham or wherever - it was a long shot, but it then meant that I texted Steve Wilson to ask his ex-RAF advice about frequencies etc - whether they would be on VHF instead of UHF at all, etc. And when the flypast was over I gave him a call.

It turns out that Steve was in the lead aircraft, a Tornado, on the 11th of June 1983! Now that is something impressive to have in your logbook! But he told me the best bit was doing the recce of the route, which he was partly responsible for planning. He described the exhileration of flying the route in a helicopter, then, because they were not allowed to fly up the mall before the big day, they peeled off and flew, at very low level and great speed along the Thames.

Airbox are selling themselves short

It isn't often the case that a company appears to sell itself short, rather than vaunting qualities that its products actually possess in rather less measure than implied. But the people at Airbox are such a case, it seems to me. They have produced a terrific product, but if reviewers weren't singing its praises, you wouldn't know it. Sure, they have some cute "Space Invaders" advertising, but it is down to people like me to shout about the features these things have.

Part of the problem, it seems to me, is that they have concentrated their efforts in the product (no complaints there) and their manual, such that it is, has been an after-thought, printed on a couple of A5 sheets (not good at all).

Yesterday I embarrassed myself by writing to Tom at Airbox to ask whether using a stylus of some kind (a sawn-off knitting needle, perhaps) might improve pointing accuracy or whether it would damage the screen. I have had mine a week and hadn't even realised that the thing has a stylus built in! I had seen the top of it peeping out of the unit and feared pulling it out in case it wasn't something that was meant to be removed. There was no mention of it at all in the instructions!

Another thing a fellow owner and I discovered quite by accident when removing our SD cards is that the unit comes with other features, including the potential to run car GPS on it, to view movies and pictures, etc. Does this mean that it was not originally built by Airbox but customised from a unit designed for something else and adapted to the Aware's needs? Does it matter? If it has all these extra selling-points, shouldn't Airbox make more of them?

When I was encouraging people in my club to join me in the 6 for the price of 5 deal, one existing owner said the problem with the system, as compared to more expensive ones, was that it could not save routes. As it happens he was wrong, and I was able to bring him up to speed on this, but I really hold Airbox responsible for this misunderstanding because their documentation is really poor; easy to understand (Good English, not as is commonly the case, Chinglish) but far too thin on detail.

The fact is that most owners of the Aware+ are going to find that they got a lot more for their money than they realised and that is not something that happens often, is it!

magic slate writer

I have come up with a very simple way of fixing my Aware+ to my leg. I went to my local haberdasher's and they sold me several different types of velcro, which I use for all sorts of things (I am a Flylight convert and as one write-up said, Flylight make their aeroplanes out of the stuff).

I use the sew-on, fluffy sided velcro as a leg-strap. I wrap it round my leg, then connect the two ends together by just placing the fuzzy panel (on the back of the GPS) down on them. Simple. The fuzzy velcro is sticky-backed. It is designed for sticking down carpet, so this is super sticky stuff. It is structurally rigid, so won't peel away at the corners of the GPS unit.

Even though I shall be flying in the wide open, I have complete confidence that I won't lose it. I have cut the leg strap long enough to fit over my suit but I can take up any slack if wearing shorts or jeans by just over-lapping it. Perfect.


Especially now that I am going to be talking to ATC, I am going to want to take notes, but there can be no question of tearing pages off and chucking them on to the floor of the cockpit (what cockpit; what floor), so I have been trying to come up with a simple, paper-free solution and then it came to me . I needed one of those magic slates we had as kids,where you write with a stylus, then pull out the board and push it back in to clear it.

So I got this one for under £2 on ebay. It isn't totally right for my needs, but I am experimenting with something similar. It needs to be about half the size and I am planning to have it strapped to my leg. It will be spring-loaded, so that I can pull out the board with one hand and it will spring back into place, clear. The board will need to slide smoothly in the frame, which it doesn't yet. I am not sure if you can use ordinary carbon paper - will need to try some.

shorts and t-shirt at a thousand feet

Easily the nicest day of flying I have ever had. A first for me - for the last half hour of flying today I didn't suit up; I just wore shorts and t-shirt and even at a thousand feet the air was warm - gloriously liberating feeling.

Yesterday I arranged to go to Sackville today to see Neill, but when I rang for PPR today he told me that a storm was due through, so we held fire. And when I texted later it seemed that it was still imminent, so we postponed. Later in the afternoon, the haze and bank of rain was very evident and I was really pleased I didn't risk it - in fact, the heavens opened on my drive home, but even in my last half hour of flying I did get a few drops on me and landed quickly and de-rigged before the wind got up. Good call.

However, before all that the air was very smooth indeed and I did some really great manoeuvring, including a pass down the runway at 20' with wheels up, so no room for getting the throttle settings wrong. That felt superb; I now have complete confidence in the undercarriage - but do recommend spraying it before flight with a lubricant.

Before flying, and indeed for much of the day (where does the time go?) I tinkered around - mainly sticking velcro to my keel and fitting the radio rig and routing the extension cable behind the seat cushion. It works very well, though you will see from the photos that its position is likely to provoke some ribbing.

Airbox Aware+

An important job today was distributing Aware+ units to the various club members who joined me in a deal I arranged through Airbox so that we each saved about £40. I won't use mine until I have found a way to secure it on my lap. It looks like a really decent piece of kit. I spent my saving on getting the quarter mil charts card for southern England on the assurance of the very helpful Lauren that they would throw in Northern England too! Personally I prefer quarter mil, but Baz tells me that the clutter of detail can, so a friend of his tells him, become rather tiresome. We will see, but for now I like the detail for picking my way.

Where the time goes

On reflection, I know where the time goes. Every task is punctuated with short, very pleasant conversations with an array of different people who wander over and admire G-CFKK: the man there on a trial flight; or the man who came a week early just to make sure of the way; or the recent joiner or low-hours student waiting for his hour with Dave Garrison; or the couple Mary Robinson introduced me to - she is a bit nervous of flying and he (who predicted he has 5 years left in him!) has just spent £70grand on his plane! And with everyone I am evangelical about flying, generally, and about the Dragonfly in particular. It is rumoured that I might sell it and it is clear I won't have any difficulty doing so when I do, judging from the interest, but after today, I can't imagine ever wanting to let it go.