Winter Flying Times

Hi all,

Not any changes that will really matter, but just to make you aware the evening slot has now been disabled as the nights are drawing in. You can continue to book AM, PM or All Day sessions.

These session times are now:

AM – Start of flying day until 1pm

PM – 1pm until Dusk

All day  will be reconsidered for fairness if we’re placed under restrictions on numbers for the winter, but hopefully from the positivity we’ve been hearing on the news this won’t occur this winter. The same for an hour between slots, currently with no restrictions this is not necessary at the moment.

Booking, and cancelling unused bookings, is still essential and a club rule. This will likely be the case for a little longer yet!

I’ll also be updating you on this years AGM plans and winter parking at the fields very soon, so keep an eye out for those emails.

Thanks!

Sam Booton

Club Secretary and Webmaster

Rushwick and BBQ

Good Afternoon,

Just to let you all know, Rushwick will be CLOSED for this weekend! We will ensure the flight areas are cordoned off to prevent damage from the bikers, and flying will resume Monday morning. 

Thanks to everyone who attended our BBQ last bank holiday weekend, it was a huge success and we really enjoyed seeing so many of you out on the field for what was a great day!

Remember, the next BBQ will fall on the 26th September. If you plan to go, please book yourself again on the club website  on the booking page for Hanbury on the 26th.

Thanks,

Sam Booton

Club Secretary and Webmaster

Club Summer BBQ

Good Evening,

The committee are extremely pleased to be able to announce the date of our first club social event since before the pandemic! We are really excited to finally be returning to some sort of normality, and are hoping you will join us in having a fun day in what has been a downbeat 18 months or so.

We are having a club summer BBQ at the Hanbury field on the 29th August, starting at around 10am. We will then be serving food around lunchtime on the BBQ, and we have even planned some fun events for the afternoon. We will be organising spot landing competitions, and will be coming up with a few more fun things to do during the afternoon too.

This event will only be for those who are part of WMAC, no other clubs are coming along to this one. However, family and friends of members are more than welcome to come along, have some food and enjoy the afternoon with you – maybe even get them on a buddy box!

We just ask that you please fill out your name and type how many guests you’d likely bring along – this is just so we can gauge numbers for food and drinks beforehand, ensuring everyone has enough. To let us know, please view the event on our website:

Click here to view event

One you’re on the event page, click to register.

We will also ask that members book on via the club website ASAP who are attending, like you would do for a normal flying day.

A quick off topic subject – a couple have asked if booking is still mandatory. Yes, it is, the BMFA have advised us to continue and this will likely be the case until next spring at the earliest. We will keep you updated on if this changes though! 

We hope you can come along, and we hope the weather holds out for our well deserved BBQ! It has been a long time since plenty of us have been allowed to fly at the same time, and we’re really grateful for your club spirit in supporting the decisions we’ve had to take during that time. We hope now we can continue to fly without interruption!

We look forward to catching up with you all on the 29th August.

Kind Regards,

Sam Booton

Club Secretary & Webmaster

Planned Website Outage

Good Afternoon,

I am just letting you know that the club website will be down from 6pm Tuesday 20th July to 3am Thursday 22nd July. This is so we can change our hosting platform as the renewal has come round this month.

I am hoping the website to be back up for Wednesday 21st morning, but as a precaution in case the enormous tasks I have to do overrun into the following evening. The job is quite a massive one to undertake as we have a lot of scripts that utilise the database, and problems could arise in the database whilst completing the task which could take hours to repair.

If you could please all book your slots for the 21st and 22nd by lunchtime on Tuesday 20th, that would be appreciated. Any bookings made after that may be lost.

If you decide to book a new booking, or cancel/amend an existing booking whilst the website is down you can do so by emailing me at webmaster@wmac.uk – I will ensure I add the booking to the system for you.

Thanks for your co-operation, and your patience.

Cheers,

Sam Booton

Webmaster & Club Secretary

Second UKCAA Event

Hi everyone,

The committee have received a request from Martyn Kinder of the UK Classic Aerobatic Assc

His request is :

Would WMAC be prepared to help them out by allowing them to hold another flying meeting at Hanbury on Sunday September 26th  the same format as they did on June 6th last.

This group of vintage model enthusiasts hold meetings up and down the UK at their members club fields. We have two such members Simon and James.

Unfortunately one of their meetings has had to be cancelled as film work will be taking place at that particular field on September 26 and as they wish to still keep the meeting they have approached WMAC.

The committee agree in principal to make Hanbury available to them on that date but would like our members to express their views first.

All members would still be able to attend to see these guys in action and members flying would be still allowed.

It’s all very friendly and a BBQ would be laid on for all. Also by then there should be no covid restrictions in place.

Please express you views on this matteron Club Chat or to the committee via WMAC Email. Please respond promptly as Simon needs to answer the request yes or no

Kind Regards,

Dave Evans

Chairman

Rushwick Update

Good morning,

Following reports on the difficulty of using the Rushwick site David Evans, Bryan Howes and myself visited the site today and were later joined by our landlord, Matt Richardson.

Most will be aware that due to an invasion of ‘river grass’ the field had become difficult to use and last September. Matt decided the only remedy was to plough and re-seed the field. This also provided an opportunity to review the field layout.

Due to weather conditions being adverse in respect of too wet, too dry and too cold at various times, retarding the development of the new sward, the field is as good as we would would expect considering the conditions. A Max Thrust Riot was flown and with standard wheels demonstrated that whilst it was possible to fly it was far from ideal and we sympathise with those that have been doing their best to use the site. We did not feel the main problem was ruts but the fact that the field was seeded by drilling which creates rows of grass with soil in between creating a mini ploughed effect. This can cause aircraft with small wheels to trip. There is some evidence that the grass has knitted together in places elevating the trip hazard. Given the right conditions the whole runway will fill in to enable a smoother surface to emerge, this is more likely to happen later in the year. At the end of March we did roll and seed the strip but with little effect and during the dry period Matt rolled it with his heavyweight roller to try and improve matters.

Purchasing a quantity of topsoil has been considered, racking this in with grass seed to try and level the surface. However, it is thought that with dry weather the soil could become dry and disperse without any grass germination or should we have rain then we could create a mud bath, our landlord concurs with this opinion. You will be aware that when trying to create a lawn effect a critical part is regular watering and there is no possibility of this at the field.

The conclusion is the field is only suitable, in the short term, for aircraft with larger wheels or powered gliders until the grass develops further. If those with some horticultural knowledge feel there is a short term solution we urge you to formulate a plan and present it to the committee who will enthusiastically receive it.

With the runway moved out into the field we have unobstructed, flat approaches and can also avoid over flying the neighbours field. The runway is also wider than it has been before, enabling take off and landing at an angle if wind direction dictates. The parking area / pits will be moved to behind the bank on your left as you approach the field so it is nearer the runway.

We much regret the inconvenienced caused but still feel long term we will have an improved site. Hanbury is operating and with up to 30 people now being allowed there should be no problem with booking a flying slot.

Clive Maulden

Flying on Sunday 6th June

Good morning,

I hope you’re all enjoying the sudden change of weather over the past week! A couple of updates on the flying fields for this Sunday for you this morning…

Hanbury

Hanbury will be closed to members on Sunday 6th June 2021, due to a pre-arranged UKCAA event happening. As we are having to limit numbers this year, we can’t have more than 30 people there in total. This includes committee, organisers, photography, cooks etc… However, we are expecting only around 10 or so UKCAA members to attend. Therefore, after a couple of members of our committee are included in this number to cook and run the event, this will leave around 15 spaces or so for our own members to attend. 

You must book in, however not via the usual channels. The booking system on our website isn’t supported for this event as it is externally arranged, and instead you’ll need to contact Simon Ford on either smjaford@btinternet.com or 01386 751227. It is a first come, first serve basis so you’ll need to contact him quick! 

If you intend to fly, I’ve been asked to remind you this is not a fun fly, but for a specific type of model the UK Classic Aerobatic Association fly. The definition of the model type permitted I have been given is a model “which the design was published before 1996, for F3A pattern aerobatic flying, pre turn around era – Along the lines of Curare, pacemaker, kwik fli, blue angel etc”.  

If you’d like to offer your services as drone photography or DSLR photography, cooking or simply spectating please also contact Simon as the limitation will still apply. 

Rushwick

By unfortunate circumstance, Rushwick is also closed this Sunday. We found out last night that another motorbike event will be held on Sunday, and so we must not fly. Saturday afternoon there may well be people turning up in preparation for the event at Rushwick, so please bear that in mind whilst booking too.

Hope you all have a good weekend! 

Thanks,

Sam Booton

Club Secretary & Webmaster

May 17th Booking Update

Hello Everyone,

After some good news from Boris tonight, I am happy to inform you that we can now book 30 people per session per field as of May 17th!!

Evening and all day bookings shall also recommence, so you’ll have much more flexibility on when you visit the field.

You will still need to book to attend!

Coming later this week will be a revamped booking system (hopefully!), which will allow even more flexibility in your bookings and allow you to book multiple sessions per day (for example, AM and Evening if you wanted for some reason). It’ll also make it easier to see bookings, rather than a really long list if its a busy day. This will launch soon, and I’ll give out another email on that closer to the time to explain things better. For now, continue to use the current booking system – any bookings made will be migrated to the new system.

For now, it’ll only allow 6 bookings and AM or PM slots after the 17th, as the new system is due to replace this.

We are keeping the booking system for as long as test and trace is asked for by both the BMFA and the Government. This does mean we could potentially be booking for the long term, or we could suddenly see the end of the policy in June – who knows? If I had to make a guess, I’d say the Government may want to keep these systems running until we’ve seen through another winter, but hopefully not!! A small sacrifice though to have this freedom back to fly with large groups.

Cheers,

Sam Booton

Club Secretary and Webmaster

Worcester Model Aero Club

Booking System Review

Good evening everyone,

The booking system has been active for a week now tomorrow (Friday), and we have reviewed the current situation after looking at the trend of bookings.

It has been decided to remove the restriction of two bookings per week. There is now no limit on pre-booking your flying sessions at all. This has been done due to all but a couple of AM slots being available, and slots still being available on nearly all of the days in the PM. The initial rush thankfully wasn’t as large as anticipated, even with the perfect weather we had this week.

However, please ensure you are being fair to your other members and try to resist from large block bookings! If it is found this is occurring, we will have to look into reinstating the restriction. 

It is still only AM or PM, with no all day bookings and no evening bookings available just yet. This is always being reviewed each fortnight, and I’ll keep you updated on if there are any changes.

As before, if you have booked for an AM slot, and by midday there is enough availability for you to stay for the PM slot, you may do so but you MUST book in for PM slot whilst at the field on your phone/tablet. Otherwise, you won’t be able to stay and will have to vacate the field by 13:30. The times for AM and PM remain the same, and the restriction of no IC and a max of 3S electric between 9am and 10am and after 8pm persists. Rushwick has other limitations on IC, which are detailed on the website.

The limit of 6 per session per site also remains in place until at least May 17th.

Hope this can improve some things, and allows us to all enjoy flying a little more!

Cheers,

Sam Booton

Club Secretary & Webmaster