This event, like East Kirkby the weekend before, was blessed with “wall to wall” sunshine but unfortunately rather strong winds – on the second day it was gusting up to 30mph at times.
However, this did not deter the public attendance which was excellent on both days, and it did not deter the majority of the flyers on Saturday although some decided, quite sensibly, on Sunday that after the morning session flying again in the strong winds that really increased in the afternoon was not very comfortable. Despite this the public were entertained up to 3.30pm and went away very happy – as did the traders who were reported to have had an excellent weekends trading despite the economic gloom.

Some of the highlights of the weekend included some excellent flying by the TJD team who flew their warbirds and their jets with both panache and style despite the wind. Some of their formation flying in these difficult conditions was quite amazing, however , they did decide on Sunday to fly with slightly smaller formations to avoid any mishaps. The “Baldock team” were also always available to show their warbird formation skills and a solo slot by one of their members Mike Booth with his Spitfire was well received and appreciated by the crowd who recognised the difficulties of flying and, more importantly, landing in difficult conditions.

A real highlight of the weekend was the V Bomber formation display by Dave and Andy Johnson flying the Vulcan and Victor. On departure one of the engines on Andy’s Victor made a rather unusual noise and it soon became apparent that it was only flying on one engine – this did not prevent Andy completing his show routine – disappointingly this formation could not be repeated again over the weekend but Dave had several more solo flights with the Vulcan.

There were some excellent scale jet aircraft on the display line - unfortunately some of them could not be flown because of the very gusty wind conditions but on Saturday Mick Burrell gave a very polished display with his T33 but then suffered a rather heavy landing due the conditions with his F15. Mark Hinton had 5 or 6 excellent jet scale models on display and was brave enough to fly one or two of them on Saturday but rather sensibly decided to fly his Boomerang Sprint and Harpoon on Sunday. It was rather fitting that Dave Johnson should fly his old B17 now owned by Ken McCormick the Chairman of the Scottish Aeromodellers Association, at Rougham , which was a B17 USAAF base from 1943/45. The B17 was accompanied by the Lancaster.

Making it’s public show debut was the 60% Yak 54 of Robbie Skipton who flew the Yak with great aerobatic precision – as opposed to the “prop hanging” demonstrations he is renowned for. This display was much more fitting to an aerobatic aircraft routine and 400cc engine “growled” around the sky in true Yak fashion.

Despite the conditions , the two slowest flying models – both originating from 1930 designs - Roger Bale’s Swordfish (wingspan 4.5m) flown by Dave Johnson , and Tony Hooper’s pusher powered microlight “lookalike”, the BAC Drone (wingspan 6m) flew around at a snails pace almost flying backwards when throttled back and both landed in the space of about 5 yards in the 20mph wind!

All events of this nature take a great deal of “behind the scenes” organisation and it is a tribute to the hard work of the Bury Model Flying Club members and the LMA that such a successful show can be organised without too many hitches. It is particularly difficult when the slotting programme is so badly disrupted by the flying conditions but with goodwill on all sides the show proved to be extremely successful for the public, traders , and modellers, some of whom travelled quite long distances to reach this location in the eastern part of the UK.