For a change of scene, I popped along to a local fly-in. It struck me that there were few pilots under a certain age, and I had a look at the statistics for those holding a Private Pilot's License (PPL) in the UK. The latest stats are from 2018 (I've no idea why the rolling record can't be more up to date, after all, the CAA must know what's going on solely from the biennial revalidations). Out of 11,256 PPL's, 441 (the greatest number of a single age) are 58.

This Chilton Monoplane with a Walter Micron up front, is local to Norfolk. There are two of them resident on the farm strip where I spent many a happy hour taking people for their first flight in a small aeroplane. The Piper L4 was perfect for this exercise - nothing too exciting and devoid of all the distractions like banks of instruments, nav-aids and radios common to more modern aircraft.

But sometimes you want to get somewhere and not take all day about it and the RV-6 is one of the planes you might choose. A chum's Pioneer 300 is a similar type, though being of Italian heritage is a bit more curvy and thus prettier. I also got involved in inspecting an aircraft that was for sale. Crawling about on hangar floors is more difficult than it used to be.

I can't remember exactly when this was - perhaps in the early 90's - that I began the construction of a Pietenpol Aircamper.

The jig I built for building the ribs was unusual. You could complete one a day. The following day when the glue had cured, the pegboard (just discernible) was used to pop the completed rib out of the jig. The whole lot was subsequently sold on as a project to a chap in the Cambridge Fens and I've just heard that it's now ready for its first flight. These things take time.

I made up a small bracket to transfer the clutch pedal's motion to the sprocket torque tube. The clevis pin is for the return and can be small as there's no load at that point.

The chain needed some method of adjustment to allow for free play at the release bearing. I dug out an aircraft turnbuckle rated at 5cwt and adapted the chain to fit. I was short of one link which held up the job....

... so I turned my attention to the throttle linkage. I'm using a cable to connect the pedal to the bellcrank - it'll save a lot of trouble and avoid the problem of shafts binding if the firewall flexes.

I found a Bowden cable which required only some messing about with bits from stores and the scrap bin to make up the cable ends. There's a small amount of adjustment either end and hopefully the pedal travel will more or less match the geometry of the bellcrank.

I'll have to do this again. Besides looking a mess, the extension to the bracket is too short and the nylon nipple needs extending.

Everything's a blinkin' fight.