Author: Webmanager

For our Christmas-month gathering on Tuesday 7th December, please bring seasonal
nibbles to share as usual. We will have a quiz – but this year acting individually rather than as
teams so as to aid social distancing. We will also have some films and a skill test, resurrected from earlier years.
We will gather at BAWA in Room 4 at 7.30 and the festivities will start at 7.45.

Our Treasurer Neville Parton and daughter Hannah entered the Pooley’s Dawn to Dusk competition in June – the aim being to “undertake a day’s flying with an original and praiseworthy objective”. They flew over or landed at 28 RAF stations where 4 generations of the family had served. Neville and Hannah will tell us about the planning, last-minute changes and the successful but tiring flights.

The meeting will take place on Tuesday 2nd November 2021, 19:30 at BAWA Room 4, 589 Southmead Road, Filton BS34 7RG.

The meeting will take place on Tuesday 5th October 2021, 19:30 at BAWA Room 4, 589 Southmead Road, Filton BS34 7RG.

Barry Tomlinson, C Eng, FRAeS

RAE Bedford was the UK government’s centre for advanced flight and wind tunnel research in military and civil aviation from 1952-2001. Its role was to conduct aeronautical research & development on behalf of Government for the benefit of the British aircraft industry.

This talk on the 1st June will describe some of its programmes and major achievements, including Naval Aviation, Automatic Landing in Fog, Vertical Take-Off and Landing, and Concorde.

The Zoom meeting will open at 19:30 on Tuesday 1st June 2021. Instructions for joining the meeting will be sent separately to Strut and BAC members; if non-members wish to join us please contact our Treasurer and Zoom host Neville Parton in advance at  treasurer@bristolstrut.uk and he will send joining details.

For our Zoom meeting on 4 May we are joined again by Steve Slade and Ed Clapham.
In 1988, before the breakup of the Soviet Union, they took part in a surprising international microlight rally from Kiev to Odessa. A chance to peek behind the Iron Curtain! 

The Zoom meeting will open at 19:30 on Tuesday 4th May 2021. Instructions for joining the meeting will be sent separately to Strut and BAC members; if non-members of either group wish to join us please contact our Treasurer and Zoom host Neville Parton in advance at  treasurer@bristolstrut.uk and he will send joining details.

The Airbus A330 Tanker aircraft entered RAF Service in April 2012. This presentation by Geoff Simpson provides an overview of the civil derivative aircraft that provides UK military Air to Air Refuelling to the RAF and NATO allies around the globe.

The Zoom meeting will open at 19:30 on Tuesday 6th April 2021. Instructions for joining the meeting will be sent separately to Strut and BAC members; if non-members of either group wish to join us please contact our Treasurer and Zoom host Neville Parton in advance at  treasurer@bristolstrut.uk and he will send joining details.

For the March meeting our speaker is Rob Gratton, airspace infringement lead at the CAA, on the subject of ‘Preventing airspace infringements in the UK’. You may have met Rob in the CAA tent at the Rally in recent years.

Recent CAA rejection of several Airspace Change proposals (on grounds including failing to take full account of all airspace users) has been encouraging; we can also play our part by avoiding infringements.   

The Zoom meeting will open at 19:30 on Tuesday 2nd March 2021. Instructions for joining the meeting will be sent separately to Strut and BAC members; if non-members of either group wish to join us please contact our Treasurer and Zoom host Neville Parton in advance at  treasurer@bristolstrut.uk and he will send joining details.

This will be an opportunity to share with our strut members any lessons learned from your flying experiences (there’s no need to be embarrassed—we’ve all had something happen or done something which we wish we’d rather forget!)  

The Zoom meeting will open at 19:30 on Tuesday 2nd February 2021. Instructions for joining the meeting will be sent separately to Strut members; if non-members wish to join us please contact our Treasurer and Zoom host Neville Parton in advance at  treasurer@bristolstrut.uk and he will send joining details.

This will be the opportunity to tell us about what you have – or have not – achieved in 2020, or your plans for 2021. 

The Zoom meeting will open at 19:30 on Tuesday 5th January 2021. Instructions for joining the meeting will be sent separately to Strut members; if non-members wish to join us please contact our Treasurer and Zoom host Neville Parton in advance at  treasurer@bristolstrut.uk and he will send joining details.

The theme is Electrifying General Aviation with a good range of speakers including Rolls-Royce on the ACCEL speed record aircraft programme – due to fly this year, E-Racers and Gliders, Faradair, Pipistrel who have successful electric trainer and more in the pipeline. Design Competition winners will also be announced. The Design competition is for an eVTOL Humanitarian vehicle to operate across Caribbean islands. There are some excellent submissions.

There is more information on the conference here.

Chris Wright, chair of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s General Aviation group, previews technology-driven potential and challenges for the Light Aviation sector here.

The DofT will shortly be issuing guidance for the resumption of training and dual flying from 4 July – see http://www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/2020/News/flying.html

CAA – The Manual of Air Traffic Services (MATS) Part 1 (CAP 493) has been published as Edition 8, which will become effective on 31 July 2020: www.caa.co.uk/cap493

On 1 December 2020 the CAA will introduce a new procedure to review and, where appropriate, amend the classification of airspace. The classification determines the flight rules that apply in that airspace and the procedures that must be followed. You have the opportunity to offer comments on a draft of this new procedure at: https://consultations.caa.co.uk/policy-development/draft-procedure-to-review-airspace-classification/?mc_cid=223f21e64c&mc_eid=3edf2eff83

Last December the CAA also asked us to suggest specific airspace that they could review using the new procedure, once in place. Unfortunately the information provided on traffic flow was not fit for the intended purpose. However a summary of the responses is published at:
https://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP%201935.pdf

June/July Strut Newsletter published today. Assuming Covid restrictions allow, the next meeting of the Bristol Strut will be on the 1st September 2020.