CHRISTCHURCH BRANCH NEWSLETTER MARCH 2019

Welcome to the March 2019 newsletter of the Christchurch Branch of the RAeS.

LECTURE PROGRAMME ------

Our next lecture will be held on Thursday 28th March, when we will welcome back Bryan Pill. Bryan spent several years flying float planes in Uganda and Bangladesh and is an FAA seaplane instructor.

With a title of “Keys don't Float: everything you need to know about flying float planes”, this promises to be both informative and entertaining.

Our April lecture is on Thursday 25th April and will be given by Kim Sharman. Kim has spent a life in and around aviation, initially in the , followed by civilian flying, where he ended up as a 747 Captain with Cathay Pacific. In the Navy, he flew Sea Vixens. This lecture is about Kim’s experiences in the Fleet Air Arm as well as covering the early history of .

To close the season, our lecture on Thursday 23rd May will be given by Colonel Richard Graham USAF (Ret’d). Col. Graham has 15 years’ experience flying the SR-71 Blackbird and is in great demand as a speaker. This lecture is generously supported by Cobham plc.

Col. Graham’s presentation will include a short video honouring the legendary Lockheed “Skunk Works” aircraft engineer, Kelly Johnson. This presentation links the world of engineering with aviation and gives the audience a much deeper appreciation of just how far “outside the box” Kelly Johnson had to think.

The Q&A session at the end will give you an opportunity to ask questions about the once highly classified program.

All our lectures are open to the public, so please help us to publicise our events by telling your friends and family about our lecture programme.

1 LECTURE REVIEWS ------

We are over halfway through our programme for the 2018-2019 season, and I hope you will agree that we have had some excellent lectures.

Our season started with a lecture by Lt Cdr Chris Gotke AFC, Sea Fury display pilot with the Historic Flight. We were fortunate to secure Chris as a speaker, as this was his final duty before being redeployed to a new role within a few days of his talk to us.

Chris suggested that we should visit the RNHF’s hangar at , which is open for occasional group visits. I’m pleased to say that this visit has now been arranged for Monday 20th May. Full details are on Page 3.

Our biannual Sir Alan Cobham lecture was given by Graham Lake on the important topic of Single European Sky.

This lecture was generously sponsored by Cobham plc and we were pleased to welcome the RAeS President Simon Henley and Lee Griffiths from Cobham plc. Amongst the audience were staff from NATS and members of the Guild of Air Traffic Controllers.

L to R: Doug Wilson, Branch President; Graham Lake; Rear Adm Simon Henley, We were also pleased to welcome members of the RAeS President 2018-19; Lee Griffiths, Head local Air Cadet squadrons, who have been attending of Government Relations, Cobham plc several of our lectures this season.

If you missed this lecture you might like to know that it was filmed and is available to view on the RAeS YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_CmMqmqHRA

The YouTube channel provides a wealth of material, including recordings of branch lectures from across the Society, information videos for those considering a career in the aviation industry and a new short film on the role of the RAeS in today’s world. The link to the YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/user/AeroSocietyChannel/videos

We are already booking speakers for our 2019-2020 season and always welcome suggestions for additions to our programme.

2 VISIT TO THE FLEET AIR ARM MUSEUM AND NAVY WINGS HERITAGE FLIGHT ------

We have arranged a coach trip to the Fleet Air Arm Museum and Navy Wings Heritage Flight hangar at Yeovilton for Monday 20th May as a follow-up to Chris Gotke’s lecture.

By the time of our visit, the RNHF will have ceased to exist in its current form. The aircraft are being transferred from the military register to the civil register and collectively will be called the Navy Wings Heritage Flight (NWHF). Navy Wings is the brand name for the charity that will have the responsibility for managing the aircraft from April 2019. I shall refer to this as NWHF from now on to avoid any confusion.

We previously visited the FAA Museum in October 2015, when we Photo: NWHF combined this with a visit to the Museum’s Reserve Collection in Cobham Hall. The NWHF hangar is separate from this, so you will be seeing something different. In the hangar there are the following types: Swordfish, Chipmunk, Wasp, Sea Fury, Sea Vixen, Phantom, Sea Harrier, with a Harvard making an occasional appearance depending on the training schedule. Photography is permitted.

We will be leaving Kings Park Coach Park, Bournemouth at 08:00, with a second joining point at Meeting House Lane, Ringwood at 08:15. We should arrive at the Museum at 10:00. We will leave the museum at 17:00 and expect to be back in the local area by 19:00. Timings are approximate and are dependent on traffic conditions.

The cost of the visit has been set at £30, which includes coach travel with South Coast Travel, admission to the FAA Museum, transfer by coach between the Museum and the NWHF hangar, a donation to Navy Wings and a gratuity for the driver. The visit has been priced based on 20 people. I have booked a 34-seater coach, and if more people book, it will be cheaper, so do please bring friends and family if you wish.

Please note that you will need to bring photo id for this visit.

How to book

Send an e-mail to [email protected] or telephone 01202 394101 (answerphone). Please provide - Your name - Your contact details (preferably an e-mail address) - The number of tickets you would like

Please let me know by Sunday 24th March so that I can confirm the final price and finalise the arrangements with the coach company, NWHF and the Museum. No money is needed at the moment. I will confirm the final details and ask for payment once I know we have the numbers.

If you have any questions, or need more information, please contact me using the details above. Jenny Gurden 3 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ------

The Branch’s Annual General Meeting will take place on Thursday 25th April at 6:45pm at Bournemouth University. The AGM will be followed by the April lecture (see page 1).

Would you consider joining the committee? We would welcome anyone with new ideas to help move the branch forward and to support the existing committee. If you would like to know more about what is involved, please speak to any member of the Committee at a lecture.

A nomination form and request for additional agenda items is included with this newsletter as a separate document.

AEROSPACE INSIGHT ------

Have you explored the RAeS website? It’s worth taking a look at Aerospace Insight https://www.aerosociety.com/news-expertise/aerospace-insight/ which is a continuously updated source of information on a wide range of topics relevant to the aerospace industry, including informed analysis of breaking news, show reports, new technology and product analysis.

To give you an idea of what is available, here are summaries and links to the most recent additions to the website.

Flying the connected skies

TEREZA PULTAROVA reports on plans to turn the world’s fleet of commercial airliners into an imagery, pollution, weather and turbulence data-gathering powerhouse of cost-effective connected sensors.

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/flying-the-connected-skies/

Photos courtesy RAeS website

Beautiful bird, lovely plumage

Some 50 years after the first flight of , why does this aerial icon still hold our imagination? Legendary advertising guru TREVOR BEATTIE pays tribute to this much-loved aircraft.

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/beautiful-bird-lovely-plumage/

BRANCH INFORMATION ------

https://www.facebook.com/groups/raes.christchurch.branch/

https://www.aerosociety.com/get-involved/branches-divisions/christchurch/

4 MUSEUM REVIEW ------

Have you visited the New Forest Airfields Heritage Centre?

This little gem of a museum is tucked away in Bransgore, off Derritt Lane, and is well worth a visit.

The museum includes a wealth of information on New Forest Airfields, which were an important part of the aviation capability in World War II. The museum includes information panels on each of the airfields, aircraft models and dioramas, photographs, paintings and much more.

The museum has a programme of Open Days; the first one in 2019 is on Sunday 24th March. Detailed directions to the museum and all the dates for the 2019 season are on their website at https://fonfasite.wordpress.com/whats-new/

INTRODUCING THE COMMITTEE ------

In a recent newsletter, we undertook to tell you a little about members of the committee and in this edition, this is a short piece about your lecture secretary, Jenny Gurden.

Jenny joined the Branch committee in 2007, having responded to a request in a newsletter for someone to shadow and eventually take over from the treasurer. Jenny is now the Lecture Secretary and Visits Organiser. She also looks after the Branch’s Facebook page and edits this newsletter.

She worked for Barclays Bank International, firstly in banking before switching to the Bank’s IT department in Poole. She then worked for a few years as an IT contractor, before joining the Bank of as an IT project manager, commuting daily from Bournemouth to London. When the delights of commuting wore off after 18 years, she took a part time job in a small local pharmacy, and is now the pharmacy manager, responsible for the day to day administration of the pharmacy as well as running the pharmacy’s “stop smoking” service.

Her interest in aviation comes from visits to air shows and aviation museums. Her flying experience, apart from commercial flights, consists of a trial flight in a light plane, a similar flight in a glider and a short but memorable aerobatic flight in a Zlin 526 as part of an aviation experience weekend.

AND FINALLY ------

If you missed it, the recent File on 4 radio programme about delays in training military pilots is worth listening to – here’s the link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002z4m . It includes local interest with a mention of one of Bournemouth Airport’s flight training schools.

5