18.03.2020: I’m planning to replace the oil thermostat on my plane, so I went on the website of our club to check the status of the airfield. Doing so I noticed that they have some information posted on a local rock band called Pilots of the Daydreams, which recently shot a video at our airfield. It took me a while to realise whose plane is shown in the background.

The full video can be seen on the website of the band (https://potd.ch/), the Bücker Jungmeister of Bücker Dani plays a prominent role in it.

(c) Motorfluggruppe Thurgau

This reminded me that the September issue of the monthly magazine of the Swiss Aero Club (https://www.aeroclub.ch/), called AeroRevue (https://www.aero-revue.ch/), used a picture as background of the double page containing EAS news which showed my plane (and tent…). The photo was taken by EAS member Andi Meisser at our annual fly-in at Birrfeld airfield (LSZF) on the 17./18. August 2019.

(c) Andi Meisser / Aero-Cub der Schweiz

19.03.2020: Today I went to the airport to replace the oil thermostat on my plane. The old one has been leaking oil, not much but too much to ignore. Luckily Kitfox Dani had a spare, which I could borrow. As always the seemingly easy job took much longer than I thought, but thanks to the help of Kitfox Dani and Bücker Dani I could finish it in time to still do a check-flight. That was my first flight this year, and the first one since the 16. November last year.

To check the proper functioning of the thermostat I first climbed to around 10’000 feet in a continuous climb, and then put the engine to idle to check whether the oil temperature stayed at a decent level despite the pretty cold outside air temperature. All looked fine, the oil temperature stayed at around 95 degrees C during the entire climb and then dropped to only around 75 degrees C when idling at an outside temperature significantly below 0 C.

There were some great clouds, illuminated from behind by the already quite low sun.

The privately owned, factory built SportCruiser left for a short evening flight shortly after my landing.

20.03.2020: Luckily I went flying two days ago, as today the club decided to close the airfield due to the Corona pandemic. So much about my intention to fly more this year, I wonder how long this closure will last. I have been working form home since more than two weeks, first because we do some renovations while my wife is on vacation and I have to be home for the craftsmen, but then because of the pandemic.