Meeting on Wednesday in the main restaurant at 8.00pm-social only

Bits and pieces

Alan Weal’s memorial bench by the park where he died is going ahead
and is organised by his family and friends. I rang the airport to make sure
there would be no objections to the strut providing a seat airside of the
main building and am awaiting the reply.

Articles

On the 6th Aug we had our flyin at Palmer’s farm and although the weather
was not great with rain stopping some planes attending but we still had 11
planes arrive. Everyone I think had too much to eat and we had a raffle
and made £36 pounds which we gave to Save the Children for the
drought in East Africa. See below for pics.

Finish Airshow at Janijarvi

I recently went to Finland to see friends and go to an Airshow. On he
Thursday evening I traveled to Helsinki aboard a Norwegian Airbus and
arrived at 11.30pm local just as it was getting dark. Tom was still on duty as
he fly’s the Medi-Heli chopper so we went and had a conducted tour of
the helicopter and facilities. It was intended to see the show on the
Saturday but the weather forecast for the airfield was better on the Sunday
which caused a problem as we were intending to ride the 280km on
motorcycles with Tom, Tuomo(a foreign exchange student who stayed
with me 35 years ago) and his 16 year old who had passed his motorcycle
test about 3 weeks earlier. Tom had other things he had to do on the
Sunday and he had arranged to borrow a Honda VFR1200 bike to go on.
So on the Saturday we went for a 100 km bike ride to practice for the
Sunday and we took turns on the three big bikes, I was riding Tuomo’s
Wife’s 650cc Yamaha chopper thingy, Tuomo was on his 1200cc Yamaha
Tenere and Tom was on the Honda. The Honda was a pain in the back at
the speeds we could do around the wiggly bits and Tuomo’s son was on a
125cc Honda which restricted us to 100kph but when you opened the
Honda up with 173bhp on tap it did take off! Next morning up at 5.00pm,
leave at 6.00 and arrive at the airfield for 10.20am, my first thoughts were
that there was not a lot to see. We could not go airside at all and a fair
number of the flying exhibits were models, one guy (Ali Machinchy) from
the UK did have some good models, a Me262 which was big and looked
real but ran out of fuel and nosed over on landing. One of his other models
which was not a scale model of anything but was so fast and changed
direction quicker than the eye could take in, its estimated top speed was
270kph and this is NOT scale speed! There was a Spitfire from Sweden and
an Eastern European Sukhoi SU-31 who did an exceptional low display and
a Gloster Glauntlet (probably the only flying example) but most of the time
the planes were too far away.
There was one home built plane of interest, the guy had designed and
built himself, it was composite with a diesel car engine and he could sleep
in the tail section entered though a door in the side behind the wing. More
pics next time but see website http://www.elisanet.fi/ohxxv/

Shutleworth Airshow and Proms

A couple of week ago I became Mrs Farry and he took me away to Old
Warden to see the museum and the Airshow with live music by the
National Philharmonic Orchestra at the ‘Flying Proms’. Paul Reilly and Tukta
were getting married at the event and staying in the ‘Manor House’ where
we were and they had a great time and looked they good together and
the strut wishes them many happy years.

Some of the high lights were the music and seeing the very early planes fly
and it was the first time I have seen a Lysander fly (not the plane above)
and the Bristol radial sounded great.

LAA rally Sywell 2011

We flew up on the Saturday, the weather was acceptable and we arrived
before the crowds which meant it was quiet in the circuit. Plenty of planes
flew in but I did not see a great deal to look at, just three tents and about
10 stands around the centre non-airside area. There was no home builder’s
tent and only LAS selling hardware. We need to bring companies that sell
goods on the edge of aviation ie clothes, tools, airstrip maintenance
hardware etc and give them pitches for a peppercorn rent and then that
will start the snowball rolling and more suppliers will want to come and
more punters will then appear. The delta below that flew in about 5 years
ago with a 2 cyl Hirth now had a 4 stroke 4 cyl of some sort, it did look a bit
wiggly as it was climbing out but then it was a little lumpy on the way
home compared with the outward journey. The designer was Belgium but
it was registered in France because Belgium CAA did not want to entertain
it or it was too difficult.

What’s on

Manuel Queiroz has offered to give us a talk but his costs will £80 if he
drives and £100 if he flies in as he wants accommodation for the night. If
you the members would like him to come, please give me some feed
back.

Tony

My talk has evolved to reflect the hindsight perspective and the book I wrote. I would rather do the 5th October as the September date is very close to other commitments.
I am happy to do it for my direct costs and if I fly there I would need a bed for the night. I would also be bringing copies of ‘Chasing the Morning Sun’ if anyone wishes to have a signed copy.
All the best

Manuel Queiroz

Dear All,

After the success of the previous events in 2007 and 2009 Paul & Tukta
cordially invites you to the ‘SportCruisers and Friends’ Invitational Fly/Drive-
In BBQ Lunch on Saturday 10th September 2011 at Coombe Bissett Airstrip,
Nr Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Should the weather be inclement then it will be re-arranged for the
following day (11th September 2011)

Arrivals from 11.00am, food from 1.00pm to 2.00pm

Although there will be no landing fee, all attendants (air and road) are
requested to bring a raffle prize (a bottle of wine is a common choice) and
all proceeds will go to the RNLI.

Further details can be found on the attached document and keep your
fingers crossed for good weather.

Regards,

Paul &Tukta Reilly–

Regards,

Paul Reilly

Time table of Strut events for 2011

Oct

Nov

Dec

Talk by Manuel Queiroz see above.

‘ALAN WEAL MEMORIAL LECTURE’

Xmas dinner for member & partner (free to paid up members)