Hello 182man. Good bus the 182. If you want to try something different, go have a trial flight in CSE’s SMA diesel engined 182. Friend of mine flew it the other day. ‘Nice in the air, lumpy and loud on the ground, climbs really well’. His words, not mine. Just be aware that they cannot be operated with an air temperature of 5 degrees C or below. Unlike Thielert, SMA don’t have a fuel warming facility. Yet.
Yakrider, keep your chin up, hope the ‘layoff’ isn’t for too long. Could be any one of us. BlueRobin, nice Maule. Swift, it’s too late to give up now, you are terminally hooked and will continue to enjoy this irrational, money-gobbling, time-consuming, antisocial (nimby words, not mine) interest. Good luck.
As to what do I fly, I have been fortunate to enjoy the privelage of flying many GA aircraft types owned by others. These have included PA23-160, PA28-140, PA28-161, PA28-180, PA28RT-201T, PA31-350, PA38-112, C150, C152, various C172 types, C182, C340, BN2A, Beagle 121 series 1, Citabria 7GCAA, etc, etc, etc (long list).
This list isn’t to impress, but to show everyone that if you happen to be in the right place at the right time, you can get stick time on all sorts. Oh, and running your own Part 145 helps. Unfortunately, with all this flying and trying to run a business, my own aircraft, a PA28-180E will have to wait even longer for its rebuild. One day.

In my little dream world I would ask the tooth fairy to help in organising a two-day airshow comprising as many aircraft types as possible from every aircraft-building nation in the world. I would invite all the Air Forces around the world to send all their aircraft to carry out mass flypasts. I would invite homebuilders everywhere to attend with their creations. It would have to be beside the sea so the Caspian Sea Monsters could take part as well as allowing all the seaplanes and flying boats to attend. And most importantly, the show would open with a Shackleton taking off, and close the next day with the same Shack doing the infamous three-feathered low-level flypast prior to landing.

****Oh, I must have been sleeping. Woken up know. Silly me and my dream. It will never happen. Why?? Because the CAA will not allow a Shack to fly in the UK.

Not sure if I have my memory cells working corectly here. Think it was Hillington that I visited in the early 90’s. T’was the site of Griffon work, including test bed. Had to take some exhaust stubs up for Merlins that RR were testing for us at the time. They had modified the test bed to fit the Merlin i.e. blocks to raise the engine to align the propshaft with the water cooled brake and not using the second brake – only one propshaft on the Merlin. The test bed was a link to the past. The wartime pictures I have of Rolls Royce testbeds were very familiar. The most interesting aspect was the Merlins were running on open stubs, not silenced in any way, and the doors were open. You could here the din miles away. And no-one rang to complain. Less nimby’s in Scotland?

Damn. Heard but didn’t believe. Still don’t believe Ray was mortal. Didn’t know you well but you and Mark always made me feel like an old friend. Thanks for that. I salute you Sir.

Hi. My first post so please be patient with me. P7350 had, in the mid ’90’s, two repair patches still evident. Both were in the upper wing skin only. One was, interestingly, larger than the other. They were both insert type repairs and flush with the upper skin. Why different sizes? Apparently, one was machine gun size, the other being 20 mm cannon size ah la ME109. Why the upper skin only? The lower skin had been replaced due to an ‘incident’. I’ll see if I can find a picture to help.