| 6 August
- PFA Rally Kemble |
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| The
Popular Flying Association hold a weekend rally each year. This year
commenced on Friday 4 August and was due to extend till Sunday 6 August. |
| Flyers
come usually from all over Europe and many tents are erected by the
side of their owners planes allowing them to tour the attractions at
leisure. |
| Sadly
over the last few years there seem to be fewer planes and definitely fewer
stands offering their goods. This year many of the well known names were
missing. |
| The
weather is of course a big factor in plane attendance and this year it was
not kind. We were determined to go to support a colleague who had
braved the weather from Czechoslovakia
bringing a new plane to the show. |
| We
decided the Sunday was likely to be better weather and made
arrangements. We flew the suggested route and were amazed to be the
only plane in the hold, and heard only one other in the circuit. It
started to rain as we landed, we were surprised to see so few plane on the
ground. |
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| We
parked, booked in and went to look for our friend Keith. We soon
found him showing visitors the maps he had used and explaining his route
across Germany and France and the fun times he and his co-pilot had
encountered. |
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| We
were then given a guided tour over the aeroplane
and were impressed, although of course for Martin it was too modern and
the third wheel was in the wrong place! Many visitors also showed great
interest and we understand that some left deposit cheques and others
wished to fly the plane during its round Britain tour before finally
deciding. We wish Keith and his colleagues a successful trip around
Britain and a safe journey back to Czechoslovakia. |
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|
| We then visited
all the others stands, well those that had attended!
However it did give us an opportunity to look at all the visiting
aeroplanes, again a disappointing turn out and so few from abroad. |
|
Quite
a few people turned up by car and we bumped into quite a few
"old" friends and exchanged news. Pilot magazine took
pictures of landing planes, we visited their stand to discover they had
taken two of AY. We extended our Pilot subscription and obtained
both, they were very good. |
| The PFA Rally
used to be a "must" attend event in our calendar of flyins, but
with the rise in entry fees, fewer planes attending and even fewer stands
to view we may sadly think twice next year. We returned to AY having
booked out easily, in previous years there was always a queue. |
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| Although
generally, the rally was disappointing we enjoyed ourselves, dodging the
showers, chatting with friends and looking
around the planes. It is always good to fly. |
