In this month’s edition:

• Grass Roots Fly-in Poster
• Down on the Farm Last Month 5/23 – Tony Palmer
• Speaker for June’s Strut Night: Keith Hartley, Experimental Test Pilot
• Fancy a trip to Scotland?
• Happy with the changes made to Farnborough airspace?
• How they do things up north
• How does your aeroplane fly?
• Events

Grass Roots Fly-in Poster

Print one off and put it up in your club or school. Open it full page for printing here: Poster

Down on the Farm Last Month 5/23

Klemm L25C G-ACXE

Francis has come back with 4 questions, General background info on the engine and prop. Duplicate inspection record for the controls and engine performance data ie max static rpm and oil pressures.

Bristell UK intends bringing a demo plane to the UK and should be at Aero-expro and selling a UK only 700kg version

Private Pilot Booker air show report

The show was a mixed bag; it had top end cars for sale, a golf show and a few aircraft. The aircraft hall was only about half full. Friday was downright quiet and Saturday was a little better. Given the weather was fairly good there were not that many visitors, although we might have a sale or 2!!

We have 2 strut trophies which I have on the window ledge waiting for a suitable candidate; please nominate a club member for something outstanding.

Tony Palmer

Speaker for June’s Strut Night: Keith Hartley, Experimental Test Pilot

Keith will be giving us a talk on 7th June. Read his CV below – the talk will be interesting!

2019 – present Pretty much retired, occasional fun consulting work, keep flying and driving

2009 – 2019 Test Pilot Consultant training test pilots, flight test engineers and aerospace engineers,

2002 – 08 Aerospace Consultant based in Adelaide Australia, civil certification testing, test pilot and FTE training, simulator development and acceptance, Night Vision Goggles integration, human factors testing and training, technical writing

1992 – 2002 BAE Systems Warton, experimental test pilot, Typhoon, Tornado, Hawk, Hunter, Lightning

1988 – 92 International Test Pilot’s School Cranfield, test pilot tutor and consultant, contract business manager,

1979 – 88 British Aerospace Warton, experimental test pilot Jaguar, Tornado, Hawk, EAP, Lightning, Buccaneer (Spitfire…)

1977 – 79 A&AEE Boscombe Down, A Squadron, fast jet and trainer test squadron, wide range of programmes on Phantom, Buccaneer, Jaguar, Hawk, Lightning, and lots of Hunter spinning

1976 Empire Test Pilot’s School, Fixed Wing Test Pilot training

1972 – 75 Lightning air defence Squadron tours in Cyprus and UK

1967 – 72 RAF College Cranwell, officer and basic pilot training, advanced flying training, tactical weapons training

Educated Yes, in a science and engineering biased way, but some might disagree

Career Highlights

Nearly everything, but to select a few:

Being at Boscombe Down at the best time, Current on 8 types at the same time, ranging from Venture motor glider to the Phantom FG1/FGR2. Lots of great experiences, including the Pave Spike pod integration on Buccaneer and some sporty edge of the envelope Buccaneer handling trials.

Jaguar project pilot at Bae Warton, seeing the new nav-attack system from initial design, through rig testing and a large amount of the test flying, a major improvement in the Jaguar’s capability.

Taking over as Tornado IDS project pilot as the Tornado GR1 entered service: spinning and high AOA in lots of configurations, lots of weapons system development and – why not? – flying with the canopy off.

In my spare time, doing the UK air display circuit in Gnat, Hunter, Vampire, Venom, Jet Provost, PC9, Tucano and others as well as Farnborough, Paris and Berlin shows for BAE in Jaguar, Tornado and Typhoon

Delivering Hunters and Buccaneers to South Africa and helping Thunder City set up their ex-military fast jet operations, including doing air displays in Cape Town and Jo’burg in Lightning and Buccaneer.

As Project Test Pilot for Typhoon I was responsible for all operational and pilot aspects of the Typhoon cockpit design, and had a big influence on the development of the cockpit into a major advance in pilot/systems integration.

Being in the right place at the right time – lucky man…

First Pilot Qualifications Held:

Eurofighter Typhoon, Panavia Tornado (all marks), Sepecat Jaguar (all marks), BAe Hawk (all marks) Hunter (all marks) Gnat, Jet Provost and Strikemaster (all marks), Vampire, Venom, Pilatus PC7 and PC9, Shorts Tucano (all marks) Phantom (UK Variants), Lightning (all marks), Buccaneer, Canberra (all marks), Northrop F5E/F, NA Rockwell T2B/C/D, Spitfire, Chipmunk, BAe Jetstream100/200/31/32, Cessna 400 series, various single and twin pistons.

Total hours 6000 hours on around 80 different types

Fancy a trip to Scotland?

Scroll the poster down for airfield details.

Happy with the changes made to Farnborough airspace?

If not, or you have some issues to raise, then contribute to the Post Implementation Review. The CAA has received the Farnborough Post Implementation Review sponsor’s report. The CAA’s Farnborough Airspace Change Proposal webpage has been updated with this information. The stakeholder feedback window is now open until 26 June 2023.

How they do things up north

You may already have got this in an email direct from LAA HQ, but if not, here’s the North Western Strut’s newsletter for May 2023. They seem a lively bunch. Maybe some ideas we could copy.

How does your aeroplane fly?

Surprisingly, there still isn’t a completely agreed explanation! This article for Scientific American explores two competing qualitative explanations. Which one works for you? No-one-can-explain-why-planes-stay-in-the-air

Events

We need ideas for strut talkers to cover June, Aug, Sept and October.

This month’s Strut events:

• Tuesday 6 June (D Day) – Gliding evening at Parham
• Wednesday 7 June strut night – Talk by Keith Hartley
• Saturday 17 June – Chilsfold Farm Fly-in

Other Relevant Events:

• 8-10 June – Aeroexpro UK Sywell (should be good)
• 13-16 June – Goodwood Festival Of Speed
• 30-31 June – Firle Hill climb

For the full list of events, see the site Events page.