The Golden Rule….

… is that you should do something every day – however small – to advance your project. Well, I’ve already tripped up on that one.

It was our first breakfast run of the year, so I spent most of the day before, fiddling about with the Hillman. The 12v supply to the phone charger socket had stopped working, preventing me from pumping up the tyres with my 12v pump when I was out a week or two back. I showed everything the grease gun, especially the shaft on which the brake and accelerator pedals sit. I suspected the brake pedal was opening the throttle when coming to a stop – something which tends to concentrate the mind.

Awkward’s Morgan ran very well after his attentions to the engine and gearbox though he’s making noises about moving it on so he can concentrate on squeezing 100mph out of the Avon.

I sketched out a design for Leon’s Climax-engined A7 which met with his approval – I now have the job of painting it on the bonnet.

I managed to snatch a couple of hours to myself and finished off the gearbox mount on the Teardrop Special.

Talking of which, they are now positioned and bolted onto the top rail. With the engine out of the way, I can get in to drill the rails for the horizontal tubes and retaining bolts. After that I’ll be able to start dismantling everything ready for sandblasting. I’ll just do a coat of primer for starters as I don’t want to break through the powder coating when drilling fixings for the body that don’t marry up with existing holes.

Learned Counsel had been itching to get an MX-5 engine into his Locost since the success of the last conversion which The Racing Driver took to 2nd place in the Sports Special Championship last year and I popped along to lend a hand. It didn’t take long to get the Ford and all its ancillaries out and clear the decks ready for the Mazda engine to go in.

It was a tight squeeze but once we’d remembered the method, it went in and out quite smoothly.

We had to make a couple of small adjustments on the job – some bits left over from the Ford gearbox mount managed to get in the way of the Mazda gear lever extension….

…. and by the end of the second day the engine was in position and secure so that mountings could be made up. This engine had done only 40k miles – barely run in.

As I’m going to start the Special body by building the scuttle, I was interested to have a look at the Jowett’s arrangement. Learned Counsel knocked up a new one of these in a couple of hours – including the swaging – for his original car. I don’t think I’ll be quite that fast.

Having missed two days of Special building, I comforted myself with the last of Big Sister’s truffles. The one with the gold bits reminded me of the rule.

If It Hadn’t Rained….

…. on the 3rd July 1988, the last day of the Popular Flying Association’s rally at Cranfield, I would never have met my fellow Magneteer, who was this time accompanying me back to Rognan for my third visit in almost as many weeks.

The Monday before, I and another Magneteer left Bodø, climbing out past the famous maelstrom just discernible under the bridge,

and flown on over mountain lakes before landing in Oslo for a welcome couple of hours lay-over in the SAS lounge.

Leaving Oslo, the sun dipped below the horizon and Norway’s lights came on below as we sped our way to Heathrow at nearly 600mph.

It was a clear evening and London’s western approach was bright as a button – in sharp contrast to my cottage, which was being re-wired. When I got home, it was like a war zone so I was not unhappy when the call came through to return to Rognan asap and get out of Sparks’s hair.

But, getting back to my story, I’d flown with my then wife, down to Cranfield in the old L4 for the PFA rally. It was a lovely morning and our gaggle of aircraft from Norfolk and Suffolk set off for the show in fine trim, each assuming that the others had looked at the weather and all was well with the world. Well, come 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the sky blackened, the heavens opened and stayed open for the rest of the afternoon. We tied the L4 down in the lee of one of Cranfield’s hangars and phoned a friend who, very obligingly, dropped everything to come and collect us in his car.

A few days later, we found a volunteer to drive us back to Cranfield. My current fellow Magneteer was one of our number; he’d had to abandon his Baby Lakes. I’d never met him before, but we’ve been flying chums ever since.

On our last day in Rognan, we had a couple of hours to spare so popped across the mountain, passing frozen, snow-covered lakes, into Sweden.

The road-kill is of a different order in these parts, this sad scene lent poignancy by a pair of smashed spotlights just out of frame.

The mission was to purchase a tin of Surströmming – a Swedish delicacy. Just enough salt is added to Baltic Herring to prevent it from rotting but allows it to ferment in its own juices for at least 6 months. The result is the most disgusting smelling, but apparently delicious dish. Well, we’ll see.

We left Bodø for Oslo and caught a second flight into Heathrow, crossing the English coast just a few miles north of Southend – which I remembered was where my friend Dennis – a seasoned airshow performer – first displayed the Avro. It was blowing a real hoolie on the Sunday of our return from the show and our ground speed was knocking 110kts; the Avro cruised at around 65kts indicated.

As I’d been away for it seemed, most of October, I looked in on Learned Counsel to see if he’d been pulling his weight on the Mazda-engined Locost in my absence. He explained that the installation had thrown up one problem after another – well, it never rains….