Not Been Here For a while

I'm afraid my attention has been focused on other things, it's been mas busy at work & the Stylus has only been out of the garage once in the last three weeks, to my Brother's house & that was mostly to give it a run out. So what have I
been doing? Quite a lot of sleeping after busy days at work, quite a lot of tidying up & finishing off the bathroom in preparation for my son & his family coming south for a week, starting to build my road bike back up again after having the frame refurbished, going out visiting Brooklands & the excellent Museum of Army Flying at Middle Wallop (yes, that's actually a place) with a friend - doesn't sound a lot down I come to write it down, but I've hardly set foot in the garage because of it.

There's a bit of a story across the two places, here we have a Sopwith Schneider (replica) in the Brooklands "Aircraft Factory" & as the name implies it was built for (& won) the Schneider Cup before the first world war.

When fitted with wheels rather than floats, it became the Sopwith Baby (because it was small) & when fitted with a machine gun on the outbreak of war, it became the Sopwith Pup -  here's on in the Museum of Army Flying.

Fast forward 50 years & the Sopwith company became Hawker & they were flying this, The P1127, which became the Kestrel, which became the Harrier - The Finest Aeroplane Ever Flown, as we say at work.

One of which - this very airframe in fact, won the Transatlantic Air Race in 1969.