What's New last update 24-May-2016

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Gloucestershire Airport - VFR guide

Gloucester (AKA Staverton) have produced a very swish VFR guide

New chairman takes the helm at LAA

The LAA Board has elected Brian Davies to be its Chairman following Roger Hopkinson's decision to not seek re-election and to stand down from the Board during 2015. Brian has been a LAA director since 2012.

More here

Gordon Pritt has been awarded the Lois Parker Trophy.

More details with photos

Bristol Wing's name is changing back to Strut-

The 2014 AGM voted to revert our name to the Bristol Strut. This was our old name used before the PFA became the LAA. In future we will be called the 'LAA Bristol Strut'.

It was also decided that Strut evenings will be changed from Wednesday to the first Tuesday in the month from January 2015.

Mary Leader has been awarded the Lois Parker Trophy

More details with photos

LAA appoint PFA'er as new CEO

LAA have appointed Phil Hall as their new CEO. Great to see a new man with flying and permit aircraft in his DNA. We wish him sucess in his new demanding role.

Bristol Aero Club move into their new home.

Some good news that BAC's Kemble move is now complete. The Wing wishes the Club well for its future operations their :)

Trevor takes the helm

The Wing is pleased to announce Trevor Wilcock has kindly agreed to become our new coordinator and this was ratified at our 2012 AGM. Trevor has been a Strut/Wing member for 11 years.. He is both an accomplished glider pilot and part owner of G-DENS a lovely Binder Smaragd based at Garston Farm. Trevor was featured in the "Who are We" section of the July/August 2011 newsletter.

Bristol Aero Club- relocation to Kemble

As BAE systems are closing Filton to sell the land for housing Bristol Aero Club have decided to relocate their club to Kemble and will operate from there. This won't affect our joint B.A.C. / Wing meetings at BAWA however and they will contunue on the first Wednesday in each month.

Bristol Wing - LAA Club

Bristol Wing is now a LAA Club reinforcing it's commitment to LAA and recreational aviation in the Bristol region.

Filton Airfield to close

Some very sad news. BAE Systems have announced the permanent closure of Filton at the end of 2012. The Bristol Wing has objected to the closure but the council have ignored all objections and permission to bulldoze this historic runway has been granted. This means Bristol, a city with a population of over 600,000 people will soon have no light GA facilities.

Meetings Combined

LAA Bristol Wing and Bristol Aero Club have decided to combine our monthly meetings.

We have moved our meeting date to the first Wednesday in the month to coincide with BAC's room bookings.

This has a number of advantages:

We expand our circle of friends and contacts. We have a greater combined attendance to justify speakers coming to talk to us. We get new ideas from BAC for speakers allowing us to cast our net further and visa versa. A number of wing members also fly with BAC so they get to go to both meetings at the same time. We can more easily plan joint fly outs.

We have moved to BAC's room 7 that is larger (up to 65) with more elbow room. Room 7 also has a fixed O/H projector on the ceiling and theatre style seating.

We will still have our own meeting for our AGM or anything else that needs to be separate.

Website

We have moved our website to a new hosting company DataFlame.

You will have noticed our new website address www.bristol-wing.co.uk. Please bookmark this for future as the old site will disappear soon. Our thanks to Flyer internet for their kind and generous hosting of us over many years at no charge.

This new home gives us a lot more flexibility in what we do with our website. There is capability for a password protected members area. We could if we wish set up our own forum. The site will evolve and grow as we add content. A major change is to the popular newsletters section. Hope you like it.

Filton closes at Weekends

Filton Airport has announced it will no longer operate on weekends with effect week beginning 2nd August 2010. This means life will be harder for our sister club that also meets at BAWA the Bristol Aero Club. Philip Green of BAC tells us they will be relocating their two aircraft to Kemble for weekends.

For pilots not flying from Filton this means any traffic services previously offered by Filton will now come direct from Bristol. Because Filton is closed it also means of course their ATZ collapses too. So anyone that previously used Filton will now call Bristol on 125.65 rather than Filton on 122.725.

Of course NATS Bristol are a great bunch of people and very GA friendly so to a certain extent one could argue south bound traffic will have less radio work to do to stay in contact.

NPPL (SSEA) now legal in France

After some excellent work by LAA,CAA and DGAC (French CAA) working together NPPL (SSEA) holders not just microlights can now fly to France without prior permission. The Wing would like to thank Roger and his team at LAA for their quiet diplomacy that has resulted in a super result. More on the LAA website

Leo Retires

Our good friend Leo Marriott, Head of Air traffic at Filton and prolific author has retired from Filton ATC.