Club Event Photos 2013

Fly Drive
Sunday June 30th 2013

This event was first publicized over a year ago and I was unsure whether to apply for a club stand, but asking around club members said they were interested in attending this show. The event was jointly organized by the Maidstone branch of the MG club and the Kent Gliding Club. I booked a space for 10 Panthers and we were given a prime spot alongside the runway.
Bernard and I arrived at 9.00am to find George already there and the Cars were parked as they arrived and it worked out as Kallista, Lima, Kallista all down the line could not have organized it any better if I had tried. Up went the flags, then we went and located where we had to go and book a flight in a glider. The flights cost £25. They had 4 modern gliders with a canopy where you sat in front of the pilot or you could go up in a 1950 vintage open cockpit glider where you sat alongside the pilot. I decided to go up in the vintage plane and Roz went for a modern and we were given a 9.45am time to report back and be transported to the launch site.
These were going to be cable winch launches being driven by a Chevy V8 engine somewhere over the other side of the field and got you up to around 1000 feet. The gliders climbed at a very steep angle and were soon at max height where they disengaged the cable and began soaring over the aerodrome and car show. The views were fabulous and depending on whether you found lift or not influenced the length of your flight. Mine was a very short flight yet Bernard who went just before me had a long flight it all hinged on the clouds over the runway at the time.
The system for launching the gliders worked very well with a Toyota shogun towing the 2 launch cables back from the winch ready for the next two launches. During the morning there were a few landings by classic and stunt airplanes. At Lunchtime the Gliding club put on an aerobatic display for us and the stunt planes gave a display of precision flying by flying under a bar, dropping flour bombs on to a target and bursting balloons with their propellers. The glider experiences carried on afterwards and by the end of the day 10 Panther people had enjoyed a flight.
There was a good selection of cars on display including some models that we had not seen before like the Emes Elite T140 one of two on the road and the Saab Sonett which was one of 2500 made for the US market and therefore more common than a Kallista.
This show was the first club outing for a new member from Maidstone in his 1990 1.6 Kallista. We were also pleased to welcome Colin and Di down from Staffordshire in their 2.9i Kallista to join up with the regular South East members.

Geoff Coad

Please, click on the photo to see them in larger size.