In this edition:

• Down on the farm 70 last month 10/24 – Tony Palmer
• The CAA may be checking your registration markings
• The Conway Viper flies!
• Events – The Christmas Dinner

Down on the farm 70 last month 10/24

Klemm L25C G-ACXE

Nothing to report.

Prentice G-APPL VR189

We are at the present doing a weight saving exercise, all the plastic coated plywood and trim that was put in to commercialise the plane when it was de-militarized is going in the bin as is all the 1980’s avionics and its heavy wire runs. We will weigh all the removed parts once we have taken it all out. We are also removing the outside paint as that is very heavy. The decision made yesterday was to seal up the canopy so that it will not be able to jettison it. For the military use, the idea being that when the brown stuff has hit the fan, you pull the lever in the roof between the front seats and both sides of the canopy are pushed up and away from the plane into the air stream and then you stand up and bale out with your parachute. We have a few problems with this; i.e., we don’t have parachutes.

When the canopy has departed it will be difficult to get another, it might kill a few people when hits the deck, it might smack the tail fin or horizontal section on its way. By sealing this up, we will have less leak paths for wind and rain.

Solent Sky museum

Jim and I are arranging a visit to the above museum this week as we have to return a prop we borrowed while we were testing ACXE to Jim Cresswell in the New Forest. We also inherited with ACXE some full sized drawings of flying boat controls, hull and floats. We have had them scanned and copied and we intend donating them to the Solent Sky Museum in Southampton. One of the most interesting one is for the Saunders-Roe SR.A.1 where we have the hull design!

Finnish Aviation museums

This summer I visited 2 museums in Finland but did not cover them in detail as there were so much else to report on, so here is the extended version.

I was visiting my old friend Tuomo who I first met when he was 15 as a language student when he stayed with me in Southwick and we have stayed friends for the last 46 years.

The main story here was of the VL Myrsky 2 fighter which was designed and made in Finland as they did not have any indigenous fighters as they normally purchased in planes as needed due to the very small population.

If you are not familiar with Finland’s WW2, here it is in a few words:

Winter War: Russia invades in a 105-day conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland that took place in 1939–1940, Finland 1 (Population 3 mil), Russia 0 (Population170mil). Germany invades Russia and Finland sides with Germany until the Russians invade Germany and Finland stops fighting. Russia takes large tracts of Finland and the resident Finns are sent back to Finland.

Finland decide to build their own fighter using Pratt and Whitney engines that had been captured by the Germans and sold to them. It’s called the VL Storm 1 and 2. It was used during the war and they found one recently and are rebuilding it with many new parts as a non-flyer. Tuomo had contacted the team who were building it and I got access behind the scenes to see it and talk to the team.

Tony Palmer

The CAA may be checking your registration markings

The CAA has raised the issue of non-compliant registration markings in
SafetyNotice2024008 (186.1kB PDF). Some recently built aircraft are coming out with wild iridescent paint paint schemes, so maybe there is concern that things might get out of hand, just as happened with car registrations a few years ago. I doubt this will be much of an issue for our local fleet, but if you are considering a respray, curb your imagination! (Farry to note).

The Conway Viper flies!

Back in 2016, the Newsletter contained this photo taken at the LAA Rally, of the bits of Barry Conway’s jet project that had been completed so far. The ambition seemed enormous and I heard a few people muttering ‘it’ll never fly…’ Well, It has! The below video, taken this month at Llanbedr, shows the Viper taxing out and flying.

The G-INFO entry for this aircraft, has the year of build as 2017, and it is registered as a single seat de-regulated (SSDR). Four engines – but only one seat and a MTOW of 300 kg, so it qualifies.

An amazing achievement, and the incredibility doesn’t stop there; The designer, builder and test pilot Barry Conway, an ex- commercial, RAF and test pilot, is reputedly 86 years old. An absolute inspiration!

Events

Next club night November 6th

Next club night will be at the Longshore and will be a social evening.

Christmas Dinner 4 December 2024

If you want the free Christmas Dinner which is available to all paid up members I would recommend coming to the meeting and passing over £25 for 2024 membership if you have not paid already.