Events

The 2008 Greenacres/YT Fun-fly

By Chris Bott

“Well what a fantastic weekend” These are the sentiments expressed by many people. They were talking about the Fun-fly at the Greenacres club in the West Midlands. The main reason for the roaring success was clearly the weather. It wasn’t forecast, but late Friday evening the sky went red. “Red sky at night – shepherds delight” It certainly turned out that way.

For the whole of Saturday and Sunday the skies were blue and there was little wind. No one had brought enough sun tan lotion. The burger van did a roaring trade in drinks and the ice cream van had a queue all weekend. Bouncy castles and a roundabout and kept the visiting kids busy and everyone just seemed relaxed and happy in the sunshine.

On Saturday morning a pilots briefing was held at 09:45 and flying started promptly at 10:00. The air was kept busy at all times by club members, visiting pilots and the demonstration pilots brought along by YT International. The flying was superb, with very few mishaps at all. Dawn Patrol thrilled the crowd flying formation aerobatics with three 1/3 scale Sopwith Pups.

The 38th Fighter Group flew WWII warbirds from the YT range in good numbers and in spirited fashion. The YT International Show pilots flew YT’s full range of civilian aircraft together in races commemorating the Kings Cup on a number of occasions which was very exciting.

Solo spots were flown by a couple of jets, a UK freestyle champion and also by Bob Partington showing off his Electric YT Spitfire, complete with onboard sound system generating genuine Griffon and machine gun sounds as he flew.

YT’s Delta “Mach Racers” tore up the sky and the whole display was ably commentated on, which increased the crowds enjoyment and understanding.

The event even started with a live webcam beaming pictures to the club website every ten minutes, but the relentless sunshine overheated the camera and that shut itself down mid-morning. At 5:00 on Saturday the display ended, but flying “off the peg” continued into the evening.

A Cessna with a full lighting rig was flown at dusk and looked superb. After dark the foam deltas came out with various lighting systems and Wilson Li, proprietor of YT International, was even spotted flying a prototype small glider fitted with glow-sticks.

Some lessons were learned from Saturday and by Sunday morning a new slotting system was in place along with pilot info forms which gave the commentators some information about each model. Flying started again at 10:00 and slots were run like clockwork. Every ten minutes something new was in the air. Club member slots were interspersed with Display slots. Models were prepared before slots and took off bang-on time. Only one slot seemed like it may get missed because of the excessive heat troubling an engine. But even that slot was saved by the instant response of some electric models to get in the air immediately.

The public response was also very positive, with many enquiries about club membership. At the Greenacres Club meeting on the Wednesday afterwards, six new members joined as a result of the displays, and other enquiries are ongoing.

So was it a success? Undoubtedly, emails and phone calls of congratulations and thanks have been received by the club along with quite a few enquiries along the lines of “Put me down for next year”. Clearly the weather made it, and maybe that’s all the summer we will have this year? But the weather god’s smiled on Greenacres this time, let’s hope they do again. See you next year?

Chris Bott.

For more information see www.greenacresmac.co.uk Click here to go straight there. More pictures below. Pictures from Danny Fenton, John Harrison and Pete Walton with grateful thanks.