It seemed an age waiting for JT to come out of maintenance and have her ‘back on my doorstep’ but finally, I got the chance to fly her again early this week and took an old school mate up for that ‘white knuckle, buttock clenching’ Auster Take – Off experience!

Flying again. Note the still slightly strained expression of the passenger and the relief of the pilot following the take-off!

With almost full tanks after her repositioning flight back to the strip, long grass and no wind, it was always going to be an ‘interesting’ take -off, but she did us proud and with a down-hill take-off run, we cleared the trees by what I would describe as an efficient margin….there were no screams from my passenger, at any rate and he kept his eyes open, so it must have all seemed quite safe – ignorance is bliss!

We had a great local flight around the area, though the radios were busy being in the zone and my old mate, a pilot himself, appreciated the sheer pleasure of operating from a ‘no – nonsense’ grass strip – just check the wind, have a look at the clouds, kick the tyres and go! Bliss.

We still had the charging problem but there was sufficient juice in the battery to last a couple of hours at least and thanks to the help of another strip based pilot and retired avionics engineer, that has also now been remedied by fitting one of the spare regulators; so she’s all good to go for a planned trip to North Weald at the end of the month.

It’s great finally having JT back at the strip and even better to be flying her again – lets hope the rest of the summer brings some good flying weather.

Posing with my mate's jacket - a bit of period costume doesn't go amiss......