Report by Chris Bland.

I had never been to Binham before and had been saying for a few years that I must make the effort to travel to Norfolk for a look. This decided that this June I was going to make the effort. I must admit to having been put off by the relatively long journey from the Midlands and from having been told there was a lot of cross country and slow backroads to navigate to get to the site. In reality, I found the journey was an easy cruise down the A14 along main roads to the A148 and then only about ten minutes on country roads to the site.

When I arrived I had one of the most warm welcomes I have ever received at an event. Andrew Taylor, whom I had not met before and whose farm the flying site in on, came straight up to me shook my hand and welcomed me. We then had a good chat and a friendlier person in the LMA I have not met. This set the relaxed tone of the whole weekend. The runway is actually a quite large piece of close cut grass land which is surrounded by farm crops. There is plenty room for models of all types to be flown. Flying was "off the peg", but there was never a rush or fight to fly. People just took their turn and spent plenty of time talking, relaxing and generally enjoying themselves. It was fabulous, no hassle, no pressure, just good fun. Attending fly-in is, for me, one of the best parts of LMA membership.

Some of the models that were present on Sunday.

Here is regular, well he does live only a few minutes away, Roy Salter.

G-Bee racers are always atmospheric. I have a bit of a soft spot for racers, must get one of these some day.

It was good to see Colin Hammond off duty and enjoying a spot of flying. Here he is with his B17.

Dave, I get everywhere, Johnson was here having made an outing with two of his models that we don’t see very often now; his Bronco and Spitfire. He also had a Jet with him and asked if I fancied a go. This seemed a good idea to me, but I was again the kiss of death to his models as this is the second opportunity I have had to fly his Jet only to have it break down. Dave has many any successful flights with his jet, but as soon as it gets to my turn, something fails. Perhaps it knows something about my potential as a Jet pilot!.

Finally, here is a photograph of Ian Turney-White’s Sopworth. This model flies very nicely, but unfortunately did sustain some damage on a later flight.

So the weekend travel was definitely worth the effort. I’m looking forward to going back already.