RAFMAA – BMFA AREA 14 – ANNUAL REPORT 2009

Overall, 2009 has been a good year for RAFMAA. We have managed to increase our membership once again, which includes a number of younger individuals and we have some very enthusiastic members who have contributed throughout the year. There is still more to be done and I and the Committee will be looking at how we might encourage more members, particularly full members, to get involved and promote the Association.

We were also very fortunate through the good work of our President to secure some sponsorship funding from the aerospace industry this year and next. This has enabled us to purchase a shiny new trailer van to replace the ageing caravan that has seen long and distinguished service at RAFMAA events around the country. Our thanks go to Chief Technician Martin Paffett for sourcing, collecting and fitting out the trailer.

We held our major event open by invitation to non-RAFMAA members, Warbirds 2009, once again at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire. The event was highly successful and continues to grow and improve each year. Once again the modelling press were on hand to record the event and some excellent publicity for the Association resulted. Our thanks go to all who took part, those who donated to the raffle which raised nearly £500 for Help for Heroes, and of course to Chief Technician Dan Platts and Corporal Paul Bellingham who made it all happen and those members who worked throughout the weekend.

2009 has been a productive year for RAMAA on the competition front; enough events have been competed to conclusively decide most of our flying disciplines. Although at times some of the competitions have been lightly attended there has been sufficient sport to make it interesting. The typical British weather has been doing it's best to scupper our chances of enjoyment!

Although severely thwarted by the weather, the activities on the slope kicked the season off with Mr Neil Tricker coming away with top honours after the five competitors fought their way through the slope aerobatics. Following on from this an Indoor fly event took place at RAF Digby; fortunately the wind doesn't pose a problem in the Gym there so this event went off without a hitch, again attended by five competitors. Three disciplines were flown; EZB, HLG and Helicopter, with the ubiquitous Chief Technician Martin Paffett coming out on top after the conclusion of the second event again held at Digby.

After a loss of RAF Waddington as the traditional venue for the RAFMAA fly-in it was decided to hold it at RAF Scampton. Having secured the Station Commander’s permission the event was quickly brought to fruition and was pleasantly well attended, with a great deal of flying completed, again this may be an opportunity to conduct some competition to relieve the pressure on the Main Championships. The silent flight contingent also used this event as an opportunity to continue their thermal competition; ironically it was they who bravely fought the gusty conditions on Sunday long after the power flyers surrendered! Again this was considered, by all who attended, to be a valuable and enjoyable event well worth attending.

Next on the calendar was the RAFMAA Main Championships held at RAF Honington. With the preparations completed and the attendance list well filled we all trooped down to sunny Suffolk only to find it was anything but. From the moment the first camper turned up on Wednesday the wind howled from the West with a vengeance. Spending all of Thursday thoroughly enjoying the pleasant social aspects of our sport and constantly monitoring the gusting wind (average 25Kts gusting to 35Kts), we managed to get no flying done whatsoever. Further into the evening the socialising continued over a perfect quantity of barbeque food and refreshment of the liquid sort. Kicking off the next morning, it became clear that the prayers to the weather gods had been unanswered, as after Corporal Mike Mathias and Junior Technician James Goodright bravely battled through their first round of advanced aeros the wind picked up again, quickly curtailing any further foolhardy attempts at flying. Subsequently, the day was spent socialising followed by the AGM. After prioritising our actions for the next day, we decided to cut the rounds but try and complete as many classes as possible. Saturday dawned with slightly calmer conditions so the competition was kicked off in earnest. All of the aeros classes were completed, albeit with only two rounds of advanced completed; unfortunately for Corporal Mike Mathias this had an arbitrary effect, cruelly punishing him for a dead stick part way through his second round. The Fun-fly event was extremely well competed, with pilots darting from the aeros line to the Fun-fly and back to complete the events.

The control liners made the most of the day, squeezing in as much as possible in the short window, completing the Mini Goodyear and CL Speed competitions. This was done under the shadow of the thermallers, adjacent Fun-flyers and aerobatic flyers pushing the right hand boundary. Altogether Saturday was a frantic day of flying, which even managed to see a well contested scale event through to conclusion. I don't believe that we could have crammed in any more; I don't think Honington's runway has seen as much more concurrent flying activity in many a year. Fortunately the day ended with most classes being decided and the awards presentation was fully justifiable.

Against all of the odds, this years championships have been a success and demonstrated the collective willingness of all of those concerned to make the most of any situation. It was warming to see that we still continue to attract newcomers and in spite of the weather the numbers of attendees was again up. Hopefully next year the weather will allow the balance between socialising and flying to be put back on a more even keel! Special thanks must go to Mr Robin Gowler FSMAE, BMFA Chairman, who spent the Championships assisting with transmitter control and also judging some of the events.

Altogether this has been a good year for RAFMAA competitions; there is still an element of competitions surviving only on the good will and dedication of a tiny number of devotees. With a certain amount of creativity on the committee's behalf we should be able to drum up a little more publicity and perhaps reschedule some elements of the competition to coincide with the other events throughout the year, also mitigating some of the pressure on the main champs. We may be able to entice more competitors into the different disciplines and thicken up the results; pot hunting should be a more competitive sport!

Finally, a number of the Committee resigned from their post for a variety of reasons. I would like to thank them for all the time and effort that they put in to supporting the Association and helping to further the cause of RAFMAA. I would also like to welcome those new Committee members elected at the AGM. We now look forward to the coming year and hope for similar good fortune and success.

Original Signed

M A EVANS
Wing Commander
RAFMAA Chairman
 

AREA 14 (RAFMAA) REPORT TO AREAS COUNCIL - 6th JUNE 2009

I am happy to report that RAFMAA staged a very successful invitational Warbirds event in April. The event has grown in size and stature since our first effort 4 years ago. We received some very favourable modelling press coverage in a number of well-known publications. Although the weather did its best to disrupt things on the first day it did not succeed and things improved on the Sunday considerably. We attracted over 70 pilots with models from small ARTFs up to large scale kits plus a number of jets. My thanks go to Paul Bellingham and Dan Platts for the organisation and to the team from RAF Marham and elsewhere who provided assistance over the weekend.

We are now planning our RAFMAA Fly-in, which we hope to hold at RAF Scampton in July. This will provide an opportunity for some pre-RAFMAA Championships dust downs and practice. We also hope to attract a number of Air Cadets and others and provide supervised taster sessions and make the event as informal and enjoyable as possible. This is RAFMAA’s 60th anniversary year so we hope to celebrate accordingly.

The next Executive Committee meeting will be held during the Fly-in weekend.

We have also taken delivery of our trailer van replacement for the old caravan. This was purchased with some sponsorship money as well as RAFMAA funds and will meet all our event requirements for many years to come. Special thanks go to Martin Paffett who sourced, arranged the purchase of, and fitted out the interior of the van.

Membership numbers are slightly up on last year which is encouraging, with several younger airman signing up. We are already looking ahead to the Championships in early September and we have tentatively secured the services of Colin Strauss to speak after the AGM on the C-17 project build.

Original Signed


Mick Evans
Wing Commander
Chairman