The weather held just long enough for the first flight of the Grosswing at an informal gathering of model aircraft enthusiasts I'd arranged at the farm.

Designed by Bernard Gross in 1948, a kit is being produced by a new outfit, modernvintagemodels.co.uk. With all laser cut parts that fit together beautifully, my flying chum, Jim - of Baby Lakes fame (see 'If it Hadn't Rained') was tasked with building the prototype. It flew straight off the board, and trimmed out, hands off. The next kit is the Boomer Bus, a fabulous 1941 gullwing design by Henry Struck.

Jim also brought along his electric Pitts S1 which was a real performer.

The Other Wright Brother had his Mustang...

... and his P-38 in the air. Both looked very realistic and despite the breezy conditions flew at convincingly scale speeds.

I flew my radio-controlled Chinook. No I didn't, that's a real one. In fact, I rather let the side down as, concentrating on the Special, I hadn't got on with my Precedent Bi-Fly kit. The Other Wright Brother has taken it away to complete.

I tackled the main power supply wiring...

...and began to tidy up some of the spaghetti behind the dashboard. There's a battery isolator switch on the floor of the cockpit just forward of the handbrake.

The nearside of the bulkhead is beginning to look busy. The blue pipe is the vacuum for the ignition control module which is bolted into the passenger footwell.

I got into a muddle with what should be power and ground on the dashboard. The original was a positive earth system and not really understanding the whole business of electrics, every time I thought about it, I wondered if I'd got it wrong and had to go over the whole thing again.

My new power supply has been a significant aid in getting it right as I can power up each system independently to see if it works as advertised. My rebuilt fuel pump - it worked perfectly a month ago - decided it didn't want to work, so I took it apart, readjusting the diaphragm several times and eventually swapping the new spring for the original, less strong one, before it worked again. That, and cutting out new gaskets, became a rather testing task.