Training
New Sites
We have been established at our Ashbourne site now for almost 12 months. The south westerly runway has grown to over 600 metres and the undulations of the surface are in for some severe battering - site owner Denis Salt has just acquired a 10 ton roller.
The incident with the propellor shaft slowed down training at Church Stretton, but now that the Shropshire Tow group have bought a Puma Sprint, we now only need some half decent weather to get back in the air.
Weather
Not such a great year for weather, there was no great improvement during June and July as expected (or hoped for). When a nice day comes along therefore we tend to make the most of it. For example Tuesday the 18th was one out of the book with no less than five Qualifying Cross Countries being flown! Steve Deeks completed his two, Nigel Dea needed to store some fuel at his destination as the little single seat Half Pint only has a small fuel capacity, Paul Vallis visited his home town of Belper and both Bill Holland and Mark Shiner enjoyed a pleasant evening flight to Lichfield.
Aircraft Types
We do not have a club 3 axis training aircraft at the moment, but I have been teaching on some quite interesting and diverse privately owned machines. Based at Ashbourne are the Mistral and Rans S6, whilst Stan Cornock from Sutton Coldfield, has just completed his licence in a Shadow BD. Just starting training from Church Stretton is James Greenhalgh on a Bantam (from New Zealand). Roll on the Jabiru 4 stroke powered Bantam - Edwin Gatehouse from Bewdley Airfield is expectantly waiting for the first one into this country after receiving good reports from the Southern Hemisphere.
We are always interested to visit another flying site, whether in the West Midlands or further afield. Please email to Simon Baker.
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