Tag: 2013

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BMAA Flying Show 2013

My first visit to the “Flying Show”

Simon and I decided to visit the flying show on Saturday 30 November 2013, we are both relatively new to microlighting and thought this would be a good way to get a broader view of the sport and a fun day out.

We drove up to the NEC and packed in the car park signed for the show, a tip for future years would be to park in the Birmingham international train station car park, as it is half the price and short covered walk to the NEC! Car parking at the NEC was £10 per car per day.

We didn’t know what to expect from the show, not having been before, but had been told in previous years it have not filled the hall, this year and possible previous years, it was in hall 12 and it pretty much filled the hall to capacity.

Overall we enjoyed the show with its display of light and Microlight aeroplanes a few gliders, quite a few flex wing and a health number of impressive looking gyrocopters. Also in there were displays of radio controlled aeroplanes and helicopters both static and flying, a racing car and GoCycle with a short test track!

I was looking to buy a couple of things from the show but ended up buying just a chart, from what we could see from the Flight Store, AFE and Pooleys stands the only saving to be had was on the postage, I had hoped for a bit of a deal! Maybe there was on some of the items, but not the things we were looking at. If you were joining the BMAA they were offering a good £10 discount for people signing up on the day, it would be good to have some more show only deals.

There was a lot to see and do and we enjoyed chatting to various people and looking over the aeroplanes on display, however we were both a bit disappointed in the number of different fix wing Microlights on display, there was a few, but we would have like to have seen more manufactures displaying their planes at the show so future (hopefully future!) pilots like us could get a better idea of what we might want buy once qualified.

Will we return next year, possibly, I’m undecided at this point in time, for me if there was an increase in the fixed wing microlight displays, preferably by the manufactures, then I think I would certainly go again.

Below is a gallery of pictures from the show for you to browse.

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Little Gransden Air Show 2013

25th August 2013, a day I will remember for a long time, no it was not the day of my first solo that is still to come, in fact I was not long into my training on the 25th. This was the day I first got to fly into an air show, although the day did not look promising to start with. The plan was to get to Chatteris at around 10:00 and then fly over to Little Gransden Air show. On the day I was quite excited about this, so I got to the club about 90 mins early, but it was a very grey day and it was looking unlikely that we would be able to fly to the show. As time went by the cloud began to lift and we got the aeroplanes out of the hanger. It was the first time I had been early enough to take part in this, I normally opt for an afternoon lesson. Once we got the Microlights out Mike talked me through doing the oil check and burping the engine on the training one. They have a dry sump so before the first flight of the day you need to turn the engine over on the propeller by hand to get some oil in to the engine, as you do so you get the gurgling/burping sound that tells you have done enough rotations.

Now with the aeroplane checked out and burped it was a waiting game to see if the cloud would continue to lift, while we waited Mike showed me the route we would be flying and how to read a weather chart, Mick was on his phone to someone near or at the show and they said it was OK their end. At around 11:00 Mike said lets go and we all flew out, three C42’s and a thruster all flying the short journey. We got airborne at 11:15 and the flight was uneventful, we flew higher and fast then Hazel’s thruster and I remember seeing it bellow and to one side as we went passed.  

Mike took the controls as we turned on to base leg and flew us in, shortly after parking up a Yak 52 landed behind which was great to see.

As we walked around to the reporting point a number of the crowd asked about our aeroplanes and where we were from. As we walked by the display aeroplanes Mike stopped to talk to most of the pilots, it seems everyone knows Mike!

The show itself went off well and was a day to remember after all it’s not every day you can fly into an air show!