Chairman’s report- Bickley’s first glider event.

Well just for a change the weather was good for our first event of the year.

I was unable to attend the Bring and Buy on Saturday, but I’m told it was well attended and there were many bargains to be had. The club put on a BBQ on Saturday and Sunday. Our chef, Stewart Keeble did a great job, but it was a team effort. 

The field is now in great condition and looked fantastic in the bright morning sunshine. Quite a few members camped for the weekend and were treated to a very rare event with a spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis on Friday evening. Many of you will have seen it on TV on Saturday.

For the first time, the club organised a glider event. We decided to do this as many members own a glider of some sort, everything from small foam models through to vintage scale and large composite competition models. Most types of glider were in attendance and included some Aero towing. Thanks must also go to Simon Thornton for bringing his two tugs, especially the beautiful Piper Pawnee. This is a superb and realistic model. Even the method of construction emulates the prototype.

Rapid RC model shop sponsored the meeting, which provided the club with a splendid prize of a Phoenix V2 glider. We raffled this and the money raised was put towards the club’s expenses for the weekend, so a very grateful THANK YOU to them.

I counted over 50 cars in the car park at midday and there may have been even more, so the event proved popular.

Seven prospective new members were interviewed throughout the day. By now you will have received notification of the name, we hope to see them at the field soon.

More food at midday was followed by an impromptu competition. A simple “all up- last man down wins. Foam model got a 30 second climb, intermediate models were allowed 20 second climb and moulded competition-type models were only allowed a 10 second climb under power. It looked quite exciting with so many in the air at one time. There was very little lift, so it didn’t last that long. The prizes were three good bottles of wine and the winners were; foam class Dave Wray, Intermediate class Charlie Johnson and Competition class was Steve Brett.

The Raffle prize was won by Stewart Keeble, so we look forward to seeing him flying his new Phoenix V2.

Thank you to all the committee for putting this all together. We had quite a few positive comments from members and visitors so I’m sure we will do it again.

Bob Ryan,

Chairman