Flash git!

During the long hard winter, it was obvious I wasn't going to get any flying training in, partly because Tony (my instructor) was sensibly away in sunnier climes and also because it wasn't even possible to get to the hangar due to the snowdrifts, let alone get G-BYJA out.

However, some of the time during these cold months had been spent making my flying machine a bit safer. Being black, it's very visible against almost any sky conditions, though being very small as aircraft go, it's only visible if you're close enough. But to aircraft above me, seeing me against the ground, which might well be dark (forests, lakes, etc) I suspect that my little gyro may well be nearly invisible. And as most aircraft are likely to be higher and faster than me, I wouldn't want something moving at 300mph being unable to see me moving at just 70mph.

So, I bought a pair of strobe lights to fit high up on the canopy, to help make me visible to other aircraft, especially ones above me. Only once I'd bought the strobes did I discover that there's a fair bit of red-tape involved with fitting them. Firstly you have to justify why and how they're being fitted, then describe in detail the fitting procedure, and then once approved, get it all signed off by a competent inspector and have it flight tested.

At first it all seemed a bit unnecessary, but as the project progressed it became more and more obvious to me why there were rules and procedures. It's also interesting reading the CAA's (Civil Aviation Authority) regular safety publications which list incidents affecting light aircraft. It is amazing how small a problem can cause a major drama when an aircraft is thousands of feet up.

So, the strobes have been carefully installed following all the rules and advice I've been given, and it proved to be a very useful exercise. To start with, I had to remove the dashboard. This was very helpful in understanding how the electrics in particular had been put together, and I was careful to maintain the high standard already set in the construction and maintenance of my machine. Here's the left side strobe now fitted:

Having done a ground test to establish that the strobes don't interfere with any of the other electrical systems, in particular the radio, all that remains now is to get the gyro into the air and do a flight test, once authorised to do so. I also took the opportunity to change the labelling on the dash. Not that there was anything wrong with it before, but I thought I could make it a little smarter by having all the switch etc labels as white on a black background to match the black dash:

And here's the finished article, positively raring to go!

So, all I need now is a bit of flight training ......