July / August 2005

Flying For Fun 05
Well – the event took place but the organisers could have arranged better weather for it!  Friday afternoon and all day Saturday were pretty miserable and this inevitably affected numbers somewhat.  The Bristol Strut did a magnificent job at the Used Aircraft 4 Sale Park despite the conditions.  This year we were located in a perfect position, right in the middle of the action and consequently had more aircraft parked by Friday evening than we had had over the whole weekend last year.  By the end of Sunday we heard that we had assisted two confirmed sales and many owners remarked to us that they had received lots of interest and were hopeful of completed sales in the near future.

Very many thanks must go to our stalwarts: John, Matthew, Mary, Steve, Roger and Sam who ensured that the sales tent was continuously manned with the assistance of several other Strut members who offered an hour or so each over the weekend. 

Bristol Strut was also well represented at the Rally by Dave Hall and Mike Samuel in the Education tent, and Edwin Shackleton doing the rounds with his camera as official photographer.  Trevor Wilcock took a party of children around the aircraft on Friday, and Pete Hill was kept busy with booking-in and departure briefings.  Despite worsening weather on Saturday afternoon, Ian assisted in the ‘showcase’ fly-past with Smaragd G-DENS, and also during the weekend kept the workers happy with pleasure flights around the local area.  Well done to all these Bristol Strutters for doing their bit for the cause.

September Meeting
As yet we have nothing arranged, so if anyone has any ideas the Strut will benefit from your input.

October AGM
This is a long way off, we know, but please think seriously about the future of the Strut because we MUST elect a new strut co-ordinator in October as Alan made it very clear last year that he will not be able to continue in the post.  We are very willing to offer as much help as necessary to the new co-ordinator but are unable to take on the job ourselves.  Ian & Mary

November Meeting
We are grateful to Steve Neale who has arranged with the Head of Engineering, Andrew Moore, to come and talk to our strut on 10th November. This will surely be an enlightening evening.

Where to go in July & August

New website
The recently formed Youth and Education Strut is going from strength to strength, and was well represented at the recent Flying-For-Fun rally.  Dave Hall has been very active in getting it off the ground, and he has produced this website to promote the Strut, and flying for ‘Young Aviators’ in general.  Look up http://www.flyers.org.uk or click on the new button provided on the Brissle website.  Well done, Dave!

Alan George has forwarded the following to us -

Sovereign (SMS) - Aviator Life Assurance – Special Rates
[ Mike Ford ,a Director of Sovereign Marketing Services Ltd has attended various Strut Fly-Ins and can now follow up with the following invitation] .

Hi,
I'm the person who runs Sovereign, the UK leader in the market for schemes benefiting aviators for Life Assurance.  We have spent much time and effort in persuading Life company underwriters that aviation is not as dangerous as they would have us all believe.  After some years now, selected life companies have now agreed with us and we can offer your Strut members special rates.

Just like existing car insurance or home insurance, it pays to shop around at anytime of the renewal year, as clients pay monthly nowadays anyway.  If any of your membership want to try and save money on their existing life cover, or just want a review of their cover, then please get in touch.  I can be reached on mdrford@tiscali.co.uk or by phone on 01929 425526.  If someone takes out a life assurance policy we will arrange to pay for a leading aviation magazine subscription for one whole year for them, just to give something back to an aviator.

Regards, Mike Ford (Director of Sovereign)

The following items are from PFA HQ….
Home wanted!
A long-time member is offering his entire collection of our Magazine, from 1967 to date, to anyone who'd care to have it (it's all his wife's fault, apparently....).  If any of you would like it, or know of anyone else who would like it, the member's name is Mr Szep, and his phone number is 01909 483970.  He lives near Worksop.

Vintage Aircraft Club
Some of you will be aware, that the Vintage Aircraft Club had planned to hold 5 events at Turweston during this year but were prevented by the delays and planning appeal regarding the planning application from Turweston Management being dealt with by Aylesbury Vale District Council in a timely manner.  The appeal was successful and we can continue with the Vintage & Classic event on September 18th and the All Hallows event on the 29th October, which you are most welcome to attend.

To ensure the continuity of holding VAC events at Turweston, an application has been applied for 5 events in 2006.  Many of you wrote in support of the application for the 2005 events, which had a great bearing at both the consideration at the planning meeting and at the subsequent appeal hearing.  I must thank all of you who wrote in for your support.  With the new application going in this week (e-mail dated 13th July 05) to be heard on August 4th, it is again very important to have as many letters of support being received by the planning officers.

Please write in yourself and get as many members as possible to also write in, particularly if they are VAC members.  The letters should show support for the airfields use on these five occasions for the gathering of vintage aircraft and the sociable aspects of allowing the VAC members to meet.  The airfield is very suitable as a venue due to its fairly central geographic location.  I am sure that people will be able to add further items to support the application and it is important that the letters are individual rather than copies.  Try to emphasize any planning points as these will have more effect than desires for an aircraft event.  Letters should be addressed to Mr Tony Barker, Department of Environment and Planning, Aylesbury Vale District Council, 66 High Street Aylesbury HP20 1SD and quote the application number 05/1380/APP.  Many thanks in anticipation for your support.

John L Broad - Chairman, Vintage Aircraft Club

THE PFA’s 60TH ANNIVERSARY
In October 2006 the Association will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its formation and it would be sensible to think now how this event might be celebrated.  The following suggestions from Harry Hopkins give us something to think about:

The Rally
As the Rally is the annual event which attracts the largest gathering of our members it could be used as a major anniversary event (see below) but it is debatable whether this celebration should be held during the 2006 or 2007 Rally - only the latter would be during the 60th year.

The Birthday
One celebration could be a formal dinner on the date of the Association’s formation and to which appropriate VIP guests could be invited.  The venue would be important and must be relatively easy to get to.  Hence it must either be near the geographical centre of membership (somewhere in the Midlands – perhaps near the National Exhibition Site) or in London (the transport hub for the Nation – maybe the RAF Museum, the Science Museum or the Royal Aero Club?).  Possible guests could include: our Patron; our President; a minister of the Crown; head of CAA; past chairmen and presidents; a celebrity pilot; any major sponsor, …..  fill in the blank.  As some of the cost would inevitably fall on Association funds, ideally it should be open to all members who are prepared to buy a ticket.  If attendance has to be limited then a number of tickets should be allocated to ordinary members by ballot.

New Headquarters
Depending on progress we could plan to have the foundation stone of our new HQ building laid or the building opened by a suitable VIP. 

Grass Roots Celebrations
A mass fly-in to Turweston would be one way to involve many members, provided there are no extant restrictions preventing a large number of movements.  Although October weather is unpredictable it would be nice to be able to offer refreshments (e.g. BBQ – perhaps in an open-ended hangar?) to contribute to the festive atmosphere.

Strut Celebrations
Each strut could be encouraged to mark the occasion with its own social event.  As we have time to set aside funds there’s no need to look for subventions from central funds.

Commemorative Publication
Another possibility would be a commemorative publication.  It could include a short history (already done but now out of date); pictures of the seminal PFA designs; a history of the Rally, with pictures of rallies through the years; …….. Fill in the blank.

A Commemorative Issue of Popular Flying
Alternatively, the October 2006 issue of PF would, I hope, be a commemorative issue.  It could contain pictures of PFA types through the last 60 years, together with extracts from past PFs.

Commemorative Christmas Card
Our current Christmas cards are of a comic cartoon nature.  For our 60th Christmas we could perhaps in addition have a card of a more serious and aesthetic theme.  It would be prudent to choose a design which is not suitable for just one year so that any unsold stock can be used in future years.

Competitions
We could launch a major design competition or competitions.  The first could be for a UK homebuild for the future.  The brief could be: a side-by-side 2 seater; inexpensive to build; cheap to operate and hangar; safe and easy to operate.  In short, a replacement for the aging Jodel fleet and less demanding than the Europa.  Another possible competition could be opened to universities with electronics departments, to design a fuel management system for homebuilts.  It would need to offer: accurate fuel gauging, with low pressure and low content warning.  Ideally, it would also have an indication of fuel flow/cruise time remaining to aid safety.  For this we would need to offer a worthwhile carrot.  But if the end of the competition (for a/c design) was set for 5 years hence we would have time to set aside some funds.

Flying Scholarships
We could consider offering an additional Armstrong/Isaacs Foundation scholarship to mark the occasion.  We would have time to look for a sponsor.

Youth Flying
We could launch our own version of Young Eagles, with the aim of flying 600 young people during that year.  There seems to be no reason why they shouldn’t count towards both the EAA and the PFA schemes.  We could enhance our scheme by giving each youngster an enamel badge with a suitable motif, instead of a paper certificate.

The Anniversary Rally
We could pitch for a member of the Royal Family to formally open the Rally.  There is probably a long lead time if one wants to get into a royal diary, so an early decision would need to be made.  We could try to arrange a static display of the most important PFA homebuild designs, and encourage a maximum attendance by PFA aircraft.  We should look for a major sponsor (e.g. British Aerospace; Rolls Royce; Smiths Industries; Dowty-Rotol, or Messier-Dowty).  Again, to get a major sponsor probably means early action.

Return of the Rally Raffle
One way to lift the interest in the Rally would be to re-introduce the Rally Raffle with a small aircraft as the major prize.  Advertisements in PF show that single-seat homebuilts don’t command a high price, yet one would make a most attractive prize.  Something like a Taylor Titch or Taylor Monoplane could be bought for around £5k and would in itself be worth much of that in publicity alone.

A Forward Looking Venture
Hopefully our new HQ will be well advanced or even open by 2006 and we could look to a future venture to be launched in our 60th year.  One candidate would be a museum of PFA heritage, a building large enough to house a library, detailed displays, displays of models and a number of full-sized aircraft of PFA origin (i.e. not Flying Fleas but projects dating from 1946 onwards.  Examples include: Luton Minor/Major; Currie Wot; Isaacs Fury; Isaacs Spitfire; Taylor Monoplane; Taylor Titch; Barry Plumb bi-plane; Williams Flitzer; Sherwood Ranger; Europa; etc.)

Summary
No doubt others will suggest further ways to mark this important occasion.  Whichever items are eventually chosen as suitable ways to mark this milestone anniversary, work and funds will be involved and it would be sensible to start the planning early.

A couple of snaps taken at FFF05 showing some of the aircraft on the Used Aircraft-for-Sale line.

© PFA Bristol Strut
July 2005