In this month’s edition:

• Down on the farm 64 last month 4/24 – Tony Palmer
• Tony Berryman’s first trip to Sun and Fun – Tony Berryman
• What is going on at Boeing?
• Local incident prompts spin awareness animation
• Parliamentary petition to reclassify general aviation airfields as greenfield not brownfield sites

Down on the farm 64 last month 4/24

Klemm L25C G-ACXE

We have changed the oiling system to the rockers to grease only and removed the all of the feed pipework and that alone has reduced the oil on the side of the plane by about 70% when it is running. We have read the different manuals for the various engine configurations and now we will run the engine on tick over for 3 minutes before turning off, so that most of the engine oil can be scavenged back to the oil tank. This will reduce the amount of oil dripping out of the two bottom cylinders once we remove the lower spark plugs when parked up (to stop hydraulic lock and bending con-rod etc). We could not do this before as we had problems with oiling of plugs at the lower throttle settings and this now should enable easier landing (ie no blipping of the throttle to clear the plugs).

I have just cut the grass and had 2 visitors already, Summer will be here soon??????????

Next club night May 1st

When you come to club night on Wednesday, please bring some cash for subs (£25) if you have not paid already!! And we can discuss the above and what direction you want the strut to go, suggestions please for the coming year? Just a night to chat.

We have an invite to go to the Wings Aviation museum at Unit 1 Bucklands Farm, Brantridge Ln RH17 6JT (near Hayward’s Heath area) , I will need to find out who wants to come to arrange a time and date and if it viable for them to open for us. Please consider this and let me know next Wednesday or contact me by phone, text or email

Tony Palmer

Tony Berryman’s first trip to Sun and Fun

My first visit to Sun and Fun in Florida did not disappoint and having chosen the best two days to attend my wife and I left the endless rain at home for clear Florida skies and a balmy 28 deg C.

How different to a UK air show which have become very sedate for obvious reasons. Seeing the USAF Thunderbirds close formation in front of the crowd and be suddenly startled by a singleton flying over the crowd from the rear at 200 feet in full reheat was memorable.

The F18 Super Hornet display pushed the boundaries of what was legal with a fly past at 750 mph according to the pilot, a fraction below Mach 1.

The evening STOL competition was remarkable with the Fiesler Storch using a mere 40 feet to take off and to land.

The Night air show was spectacular with close formation aerobatics from a trio of Harvards with pyrotechnics, a night glider aerobatic display and a parachute drop at night by the Navy Seals with flares.

At Duxford crowds are kept well away during the flightline walks but at Sun & Fun we were allowed to wander virtually everywhere, inside a C17, up close to a Mig29 and without any taxi way fences it was worth a good look left and right when walking over a taxiway to avoid being run down by a vintage T33 Shooting Star.

Very well organised throughout, just a shame both the B24 and the B29 were u/s and could not attend, but the L1079 Constellation display made up for that.

More pictures below. Click on image to see bigger version.

Tony Berryman

What is going on at Boeing?

My friends, knowing I have an interest in aviation, have asked me “what is wrong with Boeing at the moment?” My stock answer, based on nothing more than the gossip on social media was that, the bean-counters have taken over from the engineers. Nice to find a well researched article that backs this up. Read it here: socialeurope.eu/will-boeing-crash-shareholder-value [Ed.]

Local incident prompts spin awareness animation

If you are signed up for SkyWise alerts from the CAA (and why not…) you may have seen this. If not, then it is certainly worth a look:

There is also a Safety Sense Leaflet on Loss of Control: Stall and Spin Awareness (downloads as a pdf).

Parliamentary petition to reclassify general aviation airfields as greenfield not brownfield sites

You may want to sign this petition. Here is the text of it:

Airfields around the country are categorised as brownfield sites making them attractive for development of housing estates.

However, airfields are often mostly grass land. Reclassifying them as green belt could help protect our green countryside, protect local employment and protect general aviation.

General Aviation airfields are home to wild flowers, plants and grasses as well as many small animals and birds such as Skylarks which are on the red list. Many future commercial pilots start their training at these airfields

We can protect GA airfields from being so vulnerable to closure by designating them as greenfield sites. This could help to achieve the government’s strategy to achieve JetZero and NetZero- as well as help to cement the UK as a world leader in general aviation.

Sign here: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/660502

Events

Next Strut Night is Wednesday 1st May, 7:30pm at The Longshore. Come along with ideas for activities next year!

For a list of events go to the website Events page.

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