East Midlands LAA Strut - June 2025 Meeting

[TRAZZELL]

Well folks, June is nearly here which means it's time for our East Midlands Strut meeting. As usual, we will meet at 7:30pm on the 3rd June at The Plough, Main St, Normanton on Soar, Loughborough, LE12 5HB. They should be serving food again for those who like to eat there, but please check beforehand to avoid sustaining yourself on crisps or peanuts!

At our AGM in May, we decided to defer the Strut meeting at Derby Airfield to July (more details further below) but that left a slot for the June meeting which needed filling. David O'Brien suggested that we might have an informal meeting discussing airfields and strips that we have visited, including our favourites and why we like them. I'll get SkyDemon running on the laptop so we can look at routes/approaches to airfields and strips, as well as plates and satellite images (this will allow those joining on Zoom to take part as well). We have in mind that someone nominates an airfield then talks to the rest of us about it, and we take it in turns. If you have any pictures, funny stories (or indeed words of warning), please share them on the night (pictures can be emailed to me in the meeting, or brought on a memory stick, and I'll share them on the screen).It should be very much an interactive but informal evening which will hopefully encourage those of us with more limited experience (myself included!) to "branch out" and go to new places.

Zoom link is as usual:
Topic: East Midlands LAA Strut Zoom link
Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89351024107?p ... s4eDhZdz09

Meeting ID: 893 5102 4107
Passcode: 251605


For our meeting on the 1st July, we'll be having a visit to Derby Airfield with an earlier start time of 6:00pm. The intent is to get in some food and drink, and hopefully put on a barbeque. Whilst not a money making activity, I expect there will be a small charge to cover the costs, so it would be very helpful if you could indicate whether you are coming to the event so we are not left with a mountain of burgers and sausages, or a lake of drink. We hope to be able to show you the latest work on the Black Magic restoration project, as well as some of the interesting aircraft that are based at Derby and hear about Martin Jones' plans for the future. I'll send out a reminder in June but please remember that we will not be at The Plough for the 1sty July! It is obviously not compatible with a parallel Zoom session so will be "in-person" event only. 

I am away in August but if anyone wants to organise a meeting in The Plough, we can arrange for the room to be booked as normal - please let me know if want you me to do this.

Finally, we have the Rally fast approaching at the end of August. A few of us thought it might be nice for Strut members to meet together, perhaps on the Saturday, time TBD. I assume that there will be a Strut tent of some sort as in previous years which would be the obvious place to congregate. I am hoping to take my Menestrel project to display in the Homebuilders tent so if anyone has a long trailer flat bed which could take the 7.6m wing that they could lend me, please get in touch. Taking the fuselage is less of an issue as it will fit on a normal trailer etc., but it would be great to display the entire airframe - hopefully it can get there and back again in one piece!

I hope to see you for the "My Favourite Airfields" meeting next week at The Plough or via Zoom (minus the beer).

Best regards

Tony Razzell

East Midlands LAA Strut Coordinator