Struts 4U

Anne Hughes rounds up Strut news & views

It would seem that we are on the roundabout of ever-changing, unanticipated national and international events, where uncertainties regarding any planning of calendar events are never far away.

On a ‘worldwide scale’, the changing of venue for the LAA ‘Rally’ was far from being of major international significance, but for all involved in planning the event wasn’t without its challenges.

On Thursday 1 September we found ourselves at Popham Airfield preparing the Strut Meeting Area, which was a small marquee. This was generously sponsored by Adams Aviation and, along with host David Millin, we made it a comfortable spot for LAA members to drop in and visit, with chairs, tea urn, cups and biscuits. The area also hosted the Vintage Aircraft Club. As the weekend progressed we were graced with the presence of many visitors, and some made themselves very much at home sharing reminiscences, stories and ideas.

Among our regular residents we were very pleased to welcome David Faulkner-Bryant with his friends Wim

Beelen and Don Lord. Wim, an architect, had arrived at the 1972 Sywell PFA Rally having travelled on his bicycle from Holland, camping en route, and eager to meet up with like-minded aviation enthusiasts and aircraft builders. His first task 50 years ago, having arrived early for the Rally, was to aid David F-B with setting up two canvas army tents and the PFA stand. As Wim had served in the Dutch Air Force, this was expected to have been fairly familiar territory, but it proved a new and challenging experience! Wim was presented with a trophy for having made the longest journey to Sywell without an aircraft and this was followed by a flight over the airfield.

Since then Wim has attended the Rally each year, sometimes on his bicycle, and David had asked that we recognise Wim’s 50th visit at Struts’ Corner. We were pleased to welcome our LAA Chairman, Eryl Smith and CEO, Steve Slater, along with Tony Palmer from the Southern Strut, who hopped in on his crutches. Don, who had also been a prime mover for the Southern Strut, and involved in the Rally over many years, joined us as D F-B presented Wim with gifts, in the form of books, and we celebrated with a speech and the cutting of cakes.

Other visitors we were pleased to welcome included Sven Erik Pira, who flew in his Ercoupe SE-BFX from Sweden to join us, and Keith Briggs from the East of Scotland Strut who flew in on his round Britain flight from East Fortune, raising money for Cancer Research UK. Arriving in his Emeraude G-BDKH, Keith had stopped off at Headcorn, Lee-on-Solent, Compton Abbas and Rochester among other airfields, meeting and he received the Malcolm Allen Trophy at Popham. A meritorious achievement indeed! Thank you to everyone who called into Struts’ Corner over the weekend.

Alongside the Struts in the marquee, the Vintage Aircraft Club’s merchandise team worked tirelessly throughout the weekend, and we were pleased to welcome new members to the club. We were grateful to be supported by Andrew Butterworth from the Suffolk Coastal Strut. The VAC were also given ‘Speakers Corner’ for a Vintage Sunday morning of talks. We were really pleased to hear from John Hardie, who had received the Liz Inwood Taildragger Award in 2018, and was enjoying flying vintage aircraft.

Thanks to our speakers Steve Slater, David F-B, Alan James and Stuart MacConnacher for their wealth of knowledge on aircraft owned – and flown – by VAC members in the 1960s and 1970s… we also had to share the story of the restoration of the Pup Prototype!

Paul Lawrence of the Rally Workers Strut and was on hand to make sure the electrics reached the Struts’ urn and thanks are due, as always, to his team of sparkies for keeping the show on the road, supported by their canine friends. The Andover Strut had hosted the event with Popham Airfield manager Mike Pearson at the helm and were always on hand to make sure we were comfortable and that all our needs were supplied.

Alan Lovejoy of the Andover Strut writes, “Andover Strut took on the running of the Rally campsite way back on Leicester days. The ethos then was ‘by the members, for the members’ with every strut taking on an aspect of Rally organisation. We all remember Oxford Strut doing a wonderful job on rubbish collection!

“In the ‘Cranfield’ years Andover regularly hosted literally hundreds of caravans and family tents. Income was well into five figures. Over the years the campsite has morphed into a campsite of mainly older campers. Gone are the family groups, with Struts wishing to camp as groups. Many of our offspring as well, as mums and dads, met up annually. The campsite was a jolly place. The Andover Strut team enjoyed being invited to many a barbeque and the odd glass or two in thanks for making the weekend once again a great few days. We certainly enjoyed running the site with quite a few strutters being on site for the whole week.

“Popham’s Grass Roots ‘rally’ did bring some of that atmosphere back, mainly, I think because we were able to feel that we were all part of the event.”

Certainly, the relaxed ‘Country Fayre’ feeling over the weekend contributed to a very successful few days, and as we left Popham we had plenty of very pleasant memories to take home with us. Thank you to everyone who made the LAA Grass Roots very special! ■