As part of the upgrade process for the Long-EZ avionics, we briefly removed the right wing today, in order to fit a new coaxial cable for the new transponder. The old transponder coax cable was a massively thick one, the new cable is about half the diameter, with a shiny new transponder aerial also fitted projecting from the underside of the outboard side of the strake. Pictures of the wing removal coming soon...
An impressive box of junk is accumulating in the corner of the hangar, as old hardware is removed from the plane, and new hardware installed. The direct read lines for the fuel pressure and oil pressure guages have been removed from the aircraft, as has the old manual retrac hardware for the nose gear. There will be some sort of "odds and sods" sale soon...

For some reason, sunsets from a canard pusher are, well, kind of different...probably due to the all-over canopy, and the shapes of the winglet. Here is a sunset from Texas from 2009.

When I bought N131JF from Jesse in 2000, the plane had reliable and effective, but mostly old instrumentation. It is a classic "steam guages" plane.
Over the last 10 years, the only improvements I made in the avionics were a newer GPS (which is now itself obsolete), and the fitting of a JP Instruments FuelScan fuel flow meter.
The radio and transponder are antiques, old, heavy and (in the case of the transponder) apparently at the end of their useful lives. I have direct read fuel and oil pressure guages, which complicates the wiring and plumbing in the plane. I need a newer GPS.
I have therefore been stockpiling new avionics over the last 2 months to replace the radio, transponder, GPS and oil/fuel pressure guages.
Additionally, I will install a Wright nose lift and Strong pitch trim to reduce inflight movements and make it easier to get Mary into the plane. Although the Wright nose lift weighs 9 pounds, the existing radio is ludicrously heavy, as is the transponder, so I expect that the weight in the nose of the plane will be less after the upgrades are complete.
In a couple of weeks, N131JF will be taken offline for the upgrades. At the same time, the unfinished baggage pod project may also be finally completed. Jesse is going to perform a lot of the work for me (for a fee) since I am working silly hours on my current assignment (isn't that always the case?).
The goal is to get N131JF back in the air in time for the Telluride Jazz Festival.

At 9.30pm on Friday 28th May, the engine on N131JF fired up first time (as ever) and ran like a watch in the hangar at Lancaster, following a pre-oiling using the J&S Aviation home-built pre-oiling kit.
The plane had been sleeping since last August, after which time work committments (up to 3 weeks per month in California) had resulted in my being too busy to fly. The Annual expired in December, and my Biennial Flight Review expired at the end of January, which meant I had to complete the annual and get my BFR out of the way also.
The annual was the usual non-event, and the BFR was pretty uneventful, although Gerhard decided to improve our amusement level by having me do soft-field landings and takeoffs at Kittyhawk, a grass field just west of McKinney. Of course, I never do this sort of thing in the Long-EZ, but it was fun to find out that I had not actually forgotten how to do a landing in a C-150 carrying 40 degrees of flaps...
After completion of the BFR, it was back to Lancaster on Memorial Day to actually pull out the plane. I did some pattern work to get current on landings, but it was interesting how within 5 minutes I felt at one with the plane once more.
We flew to a couple of local airports on Memorial Day to shake the rust off the plane and the pilot. All of the airports were only one step above dead as a doornail, everybody seemed to be either clustered around the swimming pool or down at the lake.
On the way back to Lancaster via McKinney the McKinney tower informed me that my transponder was producing erroneous readouts. It was oscillating between 0606 and 7777. Since this transponder is older than the Ark and is due to be replaced in the next month, this was not a fundamental issue. Yet more impetus to get the avionics upgrade done (see next posting).

Link: http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.php?id=630840

Courtesy of a German flyer, this excellent picture of Kent International Airport (formerly RAF Manston), just round the corner from my birthplace. Note the very long runway, and lots of space for aircraft facilities. This is a tragically underused asset, but nobody seems to have a bloody clue how to make the best use of it...
Here is another picture taken on short final to Runway 10 (landing to the East, in other words). Note the incredible original width of the runway...