Our open day this year was on 21st September during a period of quite unsettled weather but on the day we were fortunate to have light winds and some sunshine too.
We had a fantastic turnout of show pilots and some of our own pilots flew too. As a club member I would like to thank all those that helped make the day a success. There's insufficient space here to feature all of the pilots and aeroplanes but I'll try and feature a few. Full details will be published on out website www.scrcs.co.uk .
Liam Swarbrick, Andy Ellison and other pilots from Tyldsley Model Flying Club flew a variety of gliders and aerobatic aircraft. Being more of scale type myself I really enjoyed watching Andy flying a Super Decathlon. Andy Pace gave a very lively display with his Vision 50 helicopter and another of one our members, Andy Wiggins, flew his rather good looking Mustang. Simon Cocker and co. make aerotowing gliders look easy but actually there's a lot skill involved.
Gordon Whitehead flew several machines but my favourite was his red and silver Tiger Moth looking absolutely splendid despite it's many years of service. Nathan Farrel-Jones pleased spectators with his amazing displays including his jet powered L39 Albatross. It's absolutely amazing and mind boggling how Chris Martindale manages to fly his high speed Voodoo models, most of us can't even keep track of them from the spectators line, needless to say I didn't get any photographs of his fast flights. More SCRCS members made flights too, Martin Kynder, Martyn Coles and Pete Jeffries all put up aircraft and acquitted themselves well. I was not too well at the time but I did manage a couple of flights with my DG1000 glider.
Sounds like a lot of flying, indeed there was and many more models and displays than I have mentioned here.
As usual we had one of brilliant raffles. I was fortunate enough to win a flight in a full size Jodel and Andy Ellison's son one an almost complete SAS Venom flying wing, so nearly complete that before the day was over it had been towed into the air. Prizes has been donated mostly by members but I should also mention that local model shops had also donated prizes, including Barnstormers.
On a rather sad note I have to report that Tom Doyle insisted that this really was the last time he was going to do the catering. His bacon butties and beefy burgers will be truly missed.
It's a great way to see model aircraft, join in and fly or just get to chat with the pilots and we will almost certainly do it again in 2015. All I can say to that is that if you fortunate enough to get an invite, don't waste it!
