Barbecue

Saturday 4th September was also Barbecue night. Some 60 members and friends enjoyed a warm evening whilst consuming barbecue fare.

Thanks as always to head chef Richard for his deft grilling skills and to Francis and the rest of the social committee for their efforts in making this an enjoyable evening.

Aerial Treasure Hunt

Our annual Aerial Treasure hunt was held on Saturday 4th September. 5 crews took part.

The task involved following a preselected route (in the shape of a truncated Spitfire) and identifying photo clues along the way. The route covered the Severn bends and Forest of Dean as far out as Monmouth, Broad Oak and Ross.

Scores ranged from 12 out of 16 locations identified to 6.

Results:   1st – Tom Bungard
2nd – Paul Haigh
=3rd – Francis Brownsill
Maria Thomas
5th – Alan George

Birmingham ATC

One Friday afternoon during August a small party of club members were able to visit Birmingham ATC. A very informative afternoon was had by all with a good insight into both Approach and Tower operations. One clear message from the ATC chaps is ‘we are here to help, don’t be afraid of talking to us.

Below is an extract from a members email after the event:

Apologies for being a bit slow in sending this but I just wanted to say thanks to whomsoever organised the ATC visit. I found it very interesting/informative and the controllers were all very keen to dissuade us from an often held view that they don’t want to talk to or help the ‘ GA ‘ community. They were particularly keen that rather than just slavishly following their zone boundary on GPS or keeping below their airspace it is helpful to squawk 0010 and listen out on 118.050 when close by so that they can make contact if they need to route traffic that might present a potential conflict.

They also had the usual share of ‘ amusing ‘ stories, I particularly liked the one about the pilot who swore blind he was over Leicester but was in fact over the Black Country. At least I now know there’s no good reason to visit Leicester!

Hopefully more visits will follow

Severn Valley Microlights (SVMC)

During the summer months weekly fly-ins to local airstrips are organised by SVMC. Phil Mathews and Mike Edwards, being members of SVMC regularly participate. This last week was a glorious summer evening and the venue was East Bach airstrip in the Forest of Dean.

Eighteen microlights (incluing G-SHMI) attended with some 60 pilots/passengers/friends. It was a great evening with a splendid barbecue and plenty of time to admire the assembled aircraft and chat to fellow enthusiasts.

BBC TV Centre, London

The BBC TV Centre in Wood Lane London was the venue for one of our occasional minibus outings in February.

A party of 13 assembled at Wood Lane for a 2 hour tour of the centre which included a look at the News Room, TV studios and the Weather Centre. Having taken this all in we were then invited to participate in a mock of the quiz show The Weakest Link and one of our party was invited to try the Autocue and be a Newsreader.

Following our visit we retired to a Middle Eastern/Moroccan restauant for a relaxing meal.

It’s March again so once more it’s time for our Awards Presentation Dinner. Around 75  club members and guests gathered at Brickhampton Court Golf Club for our 2009/10 event. MC Richard Crosby kept us all in order during an enjoyable evening which saw a 15 awards for First solo, 7  for PPL along with several Night Qualifications and IMC Ratings. A couple of our instructors have enjoyed themselves this last year with Roly gaining a helicopter licence and Phil a Sea Plane rating.

The prestigious Walwin Cup was awarded to Monika Swaine, the Daniels Trophy to Dave Farrugia and Derek Veal with the Aladdins Lamp going to Des Rocks. The citations are reproduced below.

‘The Walwin Trophy is presented in memory of Rex Walwin, a founder of this club and it’s first instructor. The trophy is presented to a student who has achieved a consistently high standard during training or has overcome a significant personal difficulty in achieving the award of a PPL. This year in recognition of her perseverence in progressing through the course despite various work and other non aviation issues impacting on her ability to devote the time needed the award goes to Monika Swaine.’

‘The Daniels Trophy, donated by Harry Daniels, a pre-war club member with a keen interest in navigation, this trophy is presented to the winners of our annual Aerial Treasure hunt. As is customary the clues were set by the previous winners, namely Francis Brownsill and Ken Cattell. Despite there being a small number of entrants for the 2009 event the clear winners were Dave Farrugia and the late Derek Veal.’

The Aladdin’s Lamp

To commemorate that ‘I’d rather not be there’ moment. The most notable event in this category this year was achieved by a Teddy Boy suffering an unfortunate upending of the Cuby on 22 grass runway here at Gloucester. No significant damage luckily other than to pride. So, step forward for a rub of the lamp – Des Rocks.

One more Des, and it’s a hat trick and you get to keep the lamp!!

Entertainment was provided by comedian and sports impersonator Aaron Jones who kept us all laughing for his entire performance. Aaron’s quick fire wit also added a certain hilarity to the results of our raffle which raised £350.00 for Midlands Air Ambulance.

A photo montage is on display in the club house. Copies are available if required.

Christmas Gathering

Our Christmas ‘Open House’ held on Sunday 20th December attracted some 60 members along to the Clubhouse during the day. A grand buffet spread was prepared by Paul and Hilary Haigh with additional contributions from other members of the Social Committee and a wonderful fruit punch concocted by Richard and Pat King. A convivial time was had by all.

Our Christmas Raffle was also drawn on Sunday 20^th. Listed below are the lucky winners. Scary thing was that the first four winners all drew their own numbers!

WINE TASTING WITH AN AVIATION THEME

Have you ever sampled a good wine and thought – “‘travels well’, I wonder if there is an aviation connection?”

Well, probably not, but that was the task given to Club members who met together for a wine tasting on 21st November 2009.

The evening started with an explanation of the ‘rules’, which was for teams (of 1, 2 or 3 people) to examine very closely every word and picture on the label on each wine bottle and see if an aviation connection, even a very loose one, could be made. Once used, a connection could not be repeated on the other wines.

The first wine examined was called ‘TURNING LEAF’, a white wine from California, and most teams managed to find up to six reasonable connections from the label.

Things then progressed very rapidly and for ‘EAGLE CREST’ ,the F15 Eagle, Christen Eagle, the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle, a British airline of the 1960’s and an American Commuter airline were identified, amongst others, as associations.

And so it went on through the following wines.

WASHINGTON HILLS: Boeing B29, National Air and Space Museum, and many associations with ‘Salmon’ for which, it was claimed on the label, the wine was a good accompaniment.

WILLOW BRIDGE DRAGONFLY produced a Sikorsky S51 helicopter and a De Havilland Biplane

OXFORD LANDING was self evident, but by this time a dozen or so other suggested associations were being made for each wine and by the time we got to

PILOT BLOCK the ideas were flowing rapidly..

Honours for each ‘round’ were well spread through the assembled members, but a tie break situation arose and the two prize bottles of wine were left unopened but closely examined by Graham and Frances and Joe and friends, each team managing to find 16 associations (we had dropped the ‘no repeats’ rule for the tie break).

Among the more obscure associations were ‘A’, as in PPL (A), ALC the code for Alicante (as in Alcohol), North and South as in compass settings, an Australian Gliding Club (Waikerie, where Oxford Landing is made) and some associations so tenuous that we really should have consulted the UKAIP.

To accompany the flying wines the cheese board continued the theme and contained Beaufort, Buffalo Blue, Oxford Blue, Black Bomber, Red Devil, Lincolnshire poacher and Devon Blue.

If you enjoy wine and cheese, and can think laterally, why not join us on the next occasion?

Helping Cubs Gain Their Air Activity Badge

A group of 35 Cubs Scouts, accompanied by 15 assorted leaders and parents, visited the Club for the afternoon on Thursday 29^th October during their half term. The Cubs, from the 2^nd Rhiwbina Pack, near Cardiff, were doing part of their air enthusiast badge and it was the first time that they had been our guests, although we have looked after local Cubs in the past.

We split them into three groups. Whilst one group was shown how an aircraft flies and were allowed to sit in a Robin (great excitement!) another group was entertained by the Fire Crew, donning protective clothes and enjoying the darkness of the rat run. The third group was instructed on the various parts of an aircraft and aircraft liveries by one of their leaders and they made drawings of planes as part of the badge. The groups then rotated so everyone did everything.

Thankfully the weather was kind and everyone was able to watch the frequent aircraft comings and goings from the grass adjacent to the Aviator whose refreshment facilities were much appreciated by the parents.

One parent remarked that this activity would undoubtedly be remembered by his son as a highlight of his time in Cubs.  The Cubs enthusiasm and interest throughout the afternoon was a delight. They were very well behaved and a credit to the Scout movement.

The Cubs drew and provided thank you cards to the Club and Fire-crew, at their next Cub Pack meeting.

Paul Haigh 

Visit to AAIB, Farnborough

A group of 14  members visited the Aircraft Accident Inspection Branch (AAIB) at Farnborough in mid April 2009.

EXPLANATIONS:

After being admitted through the impressive security system we passed an open air compound where the sad remains of several (mainly ‘solved’) accidents could be seen through the barriers.

We were then shown an explanatory video, which was followed by a short question and answer session led by our host for the visit Tony Severs, an accident investigator. This was in the AAIB’s recently completed HQ building and from there we were privileged to be taken into one of the two inspection hangars for a walk round and talk.

The hangar is dominated by the remains of the Lockerbie Boeing 747 where we were able to differentiate quite clearly between the damage done by the initial bombing and the subsequent structural disintegration. Although Pan Am 103 is now well in the past, the rest of the hangar contents were from considerably more recent accidents, some of which sadly could be regarded as ‘local’.

Tony gave us a brief verbal history of each accident and investigation with the cause, where known, and the obvious consequences being highlighted.

Most aircraft types were represented from Executive jets, twins, Cessna/Piper types, home-builds, helicopters, autogyros, microlights and a para-glider.

It was a moving experience for us all.

CONCLUSION:

Whilst a couple of the accidents had been attributed to structural failure, the overriding impression we all gained was of the dangers inherent in taking things too far, be it Human Factors or Aircraft Performance. All too often, it seemed to us all, the root cause or a contributing factor to the accident had been operation outside the approved envelope.

THANKS

We expressed our thanks to Tony for a most interesting visit and for the openness with which he had answered our questions.

RECOMMENDATION

If other Club members are offered the opportunity to visit the AAIB they should take it. It is a salutary experience which could just prevent you from taking similar risks.

The Club intend to organise a further visit.

Paul Haigh