Sunday 21st March

The second official day of Spring 2010, manageable winds from manageable directions, with a good dose of sunshine thrown in. Let’s hope for more like this. An enjoyable busy day at the patch with all sorts of aircraft (almost the full range, I think) and lots of flying. Having remembered to charge up two planes and a transmitter I completely forgot about the flight box, camera and video, so thanks to Graham Hamblin for the loan of a glowplug heating stick thing, and to Richard Holloway for going home again to get his camera. He has sent over the following action shots to record a ‘good day at the patch’.

Pat Cuss selected his Fokker DR1 Triplane for an afternoon out, and had a good few flights with it, including letting Michael test fly it in anticipation of displaying it at shows this year. We’re happy to report that the boy ‘done good’ and passed scrutiny. (Amongst other complications, the plane needs a bit of down elevator applied to keep it on the deck as soon as it’s touched down – not many are bold enough to try that and not overcook it!)

And Roy Packer got in some flights with his impressive Carden Yak. (One day we’ll see his and Michael’s up together.)

Despite the fact that Tony Box’s Piper Pawnee has been a regular flier for something like a year now, these are the first flying shots we’ve seen:

And Richard took this one to remind me that it’s been a whole week since the maiden flight, and I still haven’t got round to fitting the cowl.

It was good to see the pits so full and more or less constant flying throughout the afternoon. Thanks again to Richard for the photos, and assuming I remember my camera next time it will be interesting to try for a shot of each sort of aircraft that members bring along to fly on a typical Sunday afternoon at Keevil…