Issue No 36 Autumn 2016 XM655 in the sunshine on a stormy …€¦ · XM655 in the sunshine on a...

Issue No 36 Autumn 2016

XM655 in the sunshine on a stormy summer day

In this issue

Chairman’s Introduction Page 2

Engineering Report Page 7

Visits to XM655 0

Wings and Wheels 2016 Page 15

A Date for your Diary Page 18

Our New Store Page 19

Notice of AGM Page 20

Picture Credits Page 20

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655 MaPS Newsletter Autumn 2016

The Chairman’s Introduction Charles Brimson

Welcome to the Autumn edition of our newsletter. As I write this, the weather has just

turned a good deal colder coinciding perfectly with the timing of our Autumn EGR

at the airfield – there’s nothing like an airfield to accentuate the cold weather!

Fortunately the day remained dry, and I am happy to report that the aircraft

performed (almost) faultlessly during the 20 individual Olympus engine starts carried

out over a four hour period on Saturday 5 November (an EGR on Guy Fawkes Night

– what could go wrong? – as our airfield manager said when we told him!). The only

fault that reared its head was the AAPP alternator which seemed to be missing one

phase and miscellaneous volts – this happened on my Watch as AEO as well! It will

at least provide Tim, and others, with hours of endless fault-finding fun over the cold

winter months ahead. The reason we elected to do so many engine starts? Two

reasons really; firstly we had more fuel on board than we normally would at this time

of year owing to the cancellation of the second fast taxy run at Wings & Wheels

(itself caused by an electrical problem – on the ground support equipment) and it

seemed a good opportunity to convert some of it into heat and noise – something

we rather enjoy doing. The second reason is that in the unlikely event that the airfield

ceases aviation-based activities in the New Year, which hopefully will not come to

fruition, we wanted to take the opportunity to allow as many of our hard-working

regular volunteers an in-cockpit experience of a live aircraft. For several of them this

was a first-time event and judging by the smiles on their faces as they emerged from

the cockpit back into the biting cold wind of the running pan, it was a good

decision! We were also able to have on-board our Wings & Wheels raffle winners

who thoroughly enjoyed the experience…..

The continuing uncertainty concerning the future of Wellesbourne as an active

airfield drags on, I have to report. Although we remain confident about a successful

conclusion that will allow Wellesbourne to remain a thriving centre of general

aviation excellence, there is nevertheless a continuing period of uncertainty that will

probably lead to an outcome with lasting consequences by the end of the first

quarter of 2017. We in MaPS are almost unique in this situation – most of the

commercial businesses that operate at the airfield can, if they must, relocate to

other airfields, although most of them really do not want to do this. We, on the other

hand, cannot move anywhere, and if we are to remain the only example of a live

Vulcan, anywhere in the world, with free access (unlike Southend and Doncaster

which are airports) to our many visitors AND a runway on which to demonstrate the

aircraft (together with the associated airfield infrastructure), then we need the

airfield to remain open and active. We are supported in this endeavour by

Wellesbourne Matters Association’s Chairman, Duncan McKillop, and the Principals

of the several airfield flying schools and other businesses, not least our closest

neighbour, South Warwickshire Flying School and its Principal, Rodney Galiffe. We

must remain steadfast in our resolve and await legal/contractual developments in

the New Year which, God willing, will allow us to continue to be the guardians of a

live XM655 for many years to come.

I am happy to report some good news of one of our sister Vulcan survivors, albeit a

static display for very many years, that is XM603 at Woodford Aerodrome, home of

the A.V. Roe factory in Cheshire. When I first became acquainted with ’603 in 2009,

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she was a very sad sight. The aircraft had been standing derelict for several years

since BAE Systems (the owners of Woodford at that time) had stopped all

preservation work on the Vulcan by the venerable members of the ’603 Club

(consisting mainly of retired Avro employees) on the grounds of ‘Elf’n’Safety’. In fact,

by 2009, the future was very bleak indeed for the aircraft – panels and doors which

had been left hanging loose by VTTST engineers who had been using the airframe

as both an NDT specimen as well as harvesting her for spare parts, were becoming

detached from the aircraft, the trailing edges of the elevons were falling off, indeed

BAE Systems were concerned about the structural integrity of the airframe and were

talking about scrapping the aircraft which was obviously becoming an

embarrassment to them. After some lengthy negotiations with BAE Systems, MaPS

were invited to take a working party to Woodford and remove two of the four

Olympus 301s fitted to the No 2 and 3 positions on ’603 for use on our own Vulcan.

Whilst we were there (and we were on site for a week) we did what we could to tidy

up the Old Girl, and at least slow down the deterioration by fixing some of the loose

panels and doors with jury-rigged fixings. We were also allowed to save some of the

tools and spares that we found shortly before BAE Systems scrapped what remained

of the ’603 Club workshops. It was therefore with mixed emotions that we headed

back to Wellesbourne with two freshly factory overhauled 301s – one of which is now

fitted in the No 1 position on ’655. Since then BAE Systems have sold the site and

fortunately ’603 continued to survive long enough for the Avro Heritage Museum to

not only acquire the aircraft from the new site owners but also to relocate the

Vulcan to the site of the old Airfield Fire Station (now the new Museum building) and

also to conduct a complete cosmetic refurbishment of the exterior of the aircraft!

Sadly she will never move again, nor be anything other than a static museum exhibit,

but she does once again look immaculate and is the only surviving Vulcan painted

in anti-flash white looking exactly as she did when manufactured and delivered to

the RAF in 1963 (notably without the air-to-air refuelling probe, terrain following radar

or the radar warning receiver fin cap – all later RAF additions). What a wonderful

achievement by my old friend Harry Holmes, President of the Avro Heritage Museum,

and all the volunteers and sponsors of the project. If you find yourself in the vicinity

of Woodford, please do visit the Museum and the newly restored XM603.

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In this edition of our newsletter I am delighted that another of our long-standing

friends, Sqn Ldr Nick Wilcock RAF (Retired), has provided us with his review and

recollection of this year’s Wings & Wheels show. Nick has been a great supporter of

XM655 since the early days of MaPS and was himself a Vulcan pilot. Those of you

who frequent the Military Aviation section of PPRuNe (an internet forum for all things

aviation) may well be familiar with Nick’s fascinating mix of flying ‘war stories’, his

views on the RAF past and present and his wonderfully dry sense of humour. I offer

Nick my personal thanks for his written contribution and give him notice that I will be

pestering him for more of the same in future editions of the newsletter!

Below and overleaf are a selection of photographs of ’655 taken in June by FlyPast

photographer Darren Harbar. FlyPast commissioned Darren to provide them with the

cover photo and centrespread for the recent V-Force edition of the magazine

published in October. We moved the Vulcan to the taxiway for the occasion and

were blessed with some very dramatic thunder clouds interspersed with bright

sunshine. Darren commented to me that he could not have planned the weather

better – the results as you will see are suitably dramatic and recall the political

atmosphere of the Cold War…..

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By the time that you read these words, many of you will have attended our Members

Day on 26 November. The event has been organised by a sub-committee of our

volunteers who felt that we should do something special for our MaPS Members and

at the same time make up for the inevitable disappointment felt by everyone at the

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cancellation of the second high-speed taxy demonstration at this year’s Wings &

Wheels. For those of you who were unable to join us, amongst the highlights of the

day were illustrated talks given by two Vulcan ‘old hands’, Sqn Ldr Alastair 'Monty'

Montgomery RAF (Retired) and Wg Cdr Bill Ramsey RAF (Retired). Monty was one of

the four Vulcan captains chosen for the Black Buck bombing missions during the

Falklands War with the added link for us that one of the Vulcans that he and his crew

flew whilst training for the missions at RAF Waddington was XM655. Bill’s Vulcan

experience includes service flying with 35 Sqn and latterly display flying on the

restored XH558. He has a wealth of display flying experience including BBMF as well

as four years as Wing Commander RAFAT with the Red Arrows. As the event has not

yet happened as I write this, I am looking forward to it enormously.

I conclude my introduction to this newsletter with a tribute to the sterling work being

done by all our volunteers over the whole of 2016. I am sure that if MaPS was a

‘normal’ company with management and employees and all the bureaucracy that

comes with it, I would be receiving complaints from the workforce that too much is

expected of them every Saturday. Apart from the key objective of keeping XM655

in tip top operational condition (in itself a not insignificant challenge), our team has

to deal with an ever-increasing number of visitors both ‘walk-in’ and organised

group visits. The plan that we agreed over a year ago whereby we would alternate

Saturdays with engineering on one Saturday followed by visits the following week

has, by necessity, become rather blurred such is the demand by ever more visitors

from all walks of life. Damaris and Eric have managed to compromise whilst still

keeping things on track – and for that I salute them and indeed everyone that

comes to help in whatever way they can every Saturday come rain or shine (or large

group visit). The surge in visitor numbers shows no sign of abating, this I think is due in

part to the increased profile of Wellesbourne airfield caused by its plight. However

an even greater reason is that our Vulcan is now, more than ever, seen as the most

complete, the most original and the most accessible of the three surviving working

examples of the type. XL426 at Southend has not fast taxyed since 2005, and XH558

at Doncaster seems to be in an entirely self-made muddle. So it is not a surprise that

people are travelling from far and wide to come and see XM655. Long may it

continue….!

Finally I wish all MaPS Members and all our volunteers a very happy Christmas and a

prosperous and successful New Year that includes an operational Wellesbourne

airfield.

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Engineering Report Eric Ranshaw

As Charles has already mentioned, engineering activity has been somewhat

hampered by the enormous popularity of XM655 as a visitor attraction. However,

over the so-called summer it was even more hampered by the repeated flooding

of the aircraft pan due to the almost continuous wet weather.

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Despite these setbacks, we have been able to complete the rebuild of the No.4

Elevon, address a number of electrical anomalies by dismantling and cleaning

various earth points throughout the aircraft, replace two defective pitot heads with

new units which have working heaters, repair a leaking reservoir on the No.5 Elevon

PFCU, and resolve a strange and intermittent electrical problem by replacing a load

shedding contactor in the nose wheel bay.

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The Nav. Plotter seat in the rear cockpit has been refurbished and reinstalled

together with a number of cockpit fittings, we have built a TrolleyAcc to help support

the aircraft battery whilst the Houchin TRU is undergoing repair, and we have

recently obtained from Dunlop a new batch of aircraft tyres, some of which have

already been installed,

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Thanks to the support we receive from our friends at Intelligent Charging of Norwich,

we have recently not only had our old aircraft battery charger refurbished and

recalibrated, but we have also acquired a larger and more powerful unit at a very

preferential price. This will allow us to work on two aircraft batteries at the same time,

and we have taken the opportunity to revamp the battery bay to house the two

units.

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Visits to XM655 Damaris Tapp

The last few months have been the busiest yet for visits, even though there were

none throughout June as we concentrated on preparing for Wings and Wheels. We

have hosted many different clubs and organisations and the usual wonderful mix of

smaller groups celebrating birthdays, wedding anniversaries or just having a day out

with the most powerful and complete operational Vulcan in the world! Our visitors

have included people with experience of looking after some of the fourteen other

Vulcans still in one piece in the UK as well as those with experience of '655 and other

Vulcans during their time with the RAF. All enrich our experience of looking after

XM655 with their reminiscences, photos, log book entries and, occasionally,

donations of kit.

Appropriately for a newsletter coming out at this time of year, the first visit to mention

was from the Royal British Legion Riders. The RBL Riders are something of an institution

at Wings and Wheels, just one of the many events they attend throughout the year

to raise awareness and funds for the Poppy Appeal and, although it was only May

when they visited us on the pan, they already had the 2016 poppy pin badges!

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We also had two busy visits from the Sheffield Advanced Motorcyclists Group - we

were too popular for one visit to be enough!

Two visits over the last few months have been from the Pilots and Friends of

Rochester Airport and the British Women Pilots' Association (BWPA). In both cases,

our visitors were used to slightly smaller and less complex cockpits! The Pilots and

Friends of Rochester Airport had arranged to go on to the Wellesbourne Wartime

Museum in the afternoon, a special treat, as the museum is not usually open on a

Saturday. The BWPA visit was also special, as it included ex-Vulcan pilot and friend

of MaPS Nick Wilcock, who came along to give our visitors an expert's tour of the

cockpit.

The majority of our visits, however, have been from car clubs. These included the

Leicester and Rutland Landrover Club, whose visit coincided with the MaPS trip to

the Yeovilton Air Day. The volunteers left behind did a great job of hosting the visit,

although they did miss out on seeing the Sea Vixen, Swordfish, Black Cats ...

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Following on from the Aston Martin Vulcan sharing the limelight with XM655 at Wings

and Wheels, the link continued with a visit from the Aston Martin Area 15 Owners

Club, their cars probably looking even better next to XM655 than the Vulcan had

done in June, although I doubt the noise could compare with the roar from June - it

was easy to see (or hear!) why the Vulcan is not allowed on UK roads!

The next visits to mention were both from the Skyline Owners Club, who sported a T

shirt specially designed for their visit. Having seen the Vulcan, they will now have to

arrange visits to a Victor and a Valiant!

The Classic Corvette Club visited on a reasonably warm and sunny day.

Unfortunately, the weather was rather different for the Rover 75 and MG ZT Club.

However, as the organiser, Paul Clarke (an ex-Vulcan crew chief), had previously

shown visitors around the Vulcan at Goose Bay I'm sure he barely noticed the rain!

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The Hampshire Morris Owners travelled quite a long way to bring their lovely cars to

Wellesbourne and enjoyed it so much they intend to come all the way back again

next year for Wings and Wheels. More poor weather coincided with the visit from

the Shakespeare Scoobys although, luckily, it wasn't too bad for the photo shoot at

the end of the visit.

Once again, the largest visit was from our long standing friend and supporter, Frank

Ashley, and the Bugatti Owners' Club who brought another interesting selection of

cars. Airfields can't function without a fire crew and we were very pleased to

welcome a visit from the National Association of Retired Firefighters.

The final two group visits to mention were from the Bristol Flight Sim Group, whose

organiser, Richard Preston, was another ex-crew chief, and the Petersfield Aero

Modellers' Club, whose organiser, Neil Ryder, was an ex-Vulcan pilot. It is always

good to have organisers who can help us with the visit, not only enabling them to

share their experiences with their friends, but also allowing more of our volunteers to

get on with the engineering work Eric has planned! Unfortunately, Neil couldn't

make it on the day, but we hope he will visit us on another occasion.

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As always, I am very grateful to our volunteers for ensuring the visits are not only

interesting and informative, but also that they run smoothly - whatever the weather!

To help with this we have another new volunteer, John Lyons, who is actually ex-

Victor crew (but we don't hold that against him!). His involvement with Vulcans,

however, included being at Wideawake Airfield during the Black Buck missions

down to the Falklands, so our tours now include first-hand accounts from Ascension!

I must also thank our dedicated current and former aircrew for their help, in

particular, Mike Pollitt, who has helped out on a regular basis throughout the year.

Thanks also to Terry Wilson and Sam Weller (ex Nav. Plotter and Nav. Radar) who

have helped out on several occasions.

I would also like to thank our neighbours at the South Warwickshire Flying School and

the Control Tower for their help, particularly for their patience in enabling access to

the pan for the cars participating in the numerous photo shoots.

And finally, having saved the best to last, the early morning sun shone (briefly -

amidst the seemingly ever present rain) for a photo shoot for Ollie Cannon, his best

man and groomsmen prior to his wedding later that day to Jessica. We wish them a

long and happy life together - and hope they will both come and visit us again

following their honeymoon.

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Wellesbourne Wings and Wheels 2016

Sqn Ldr Nick Wilcock RAF (Retired)

Ex-35 Squadron 1977-80 and GVTF 1979

Another excellent show this year! Although I was fortunate enough to join the

'wheels' element after being invited to park my Mercedes-Benz 'Teutonic Tourer'

SLK32 AMG in the SLKWorld group's area, of course the main attraction was XM655

herself. The aircraft was looking even better than ever, thanks to Charles and his

hard-working band of enthusiasts whose hard work keeps the grand old lady in such

fine form.

My first encounter with the Vulcan was at the last ever RAF Merryfield 'At Home' Day

in the late '50s, when a majestic white triangle gave us a nice low flypast along the

main runway. Some years later as a CCF army cadet (unfortunately the school only

had a pongo section!), our Exmoor camps coincided with the early days of Vulcan

low level flying, so our .303 blank battles were frequently interrupted by the

intervention of Vulcans flying directly over us at around 300ft. No doubt this acted

as a catalyst for my application for the RAF and about 10 years later, after fast-jet

training and a brief but unsuccessful struggle at the Buccaneer OCU, I found myself

posted to RAF Scampton to fly the mighty 'Tin Triangle'.

The course itself was pretty thorough; ground school and flying was at Scampton,

but the simulator was still at RAF Finningley, home of the original Vulcan OCU. We

trained purely for the low-level tactical nuclear role; quite a lot of people probably

don't actually know that this was the primary role of the Vulcan in the 14 years

between the handover of the deterrent role to the RN and the 1982 Falklands War.

Part of the training involved a session at the euphemistically titled 'RAF Armament

Support Unit' at RAF Wittering, or rather Collyweston, for the '11A1' course. Or, as

one Harrier pilot in the Officers' Mess described it, "You lot must be here for the

hydrogen bomb course!". Aircrew being aircrew, of course the night before it

started we embarked on the usual vindaloo and Ruddles session in Stamford, so

even after the restorative properties of a hearty 'full English' Officers' Mess breakfast,

the efforts of well-meaning Chief Technicians in attempting to explain the Pauli

exclusion principle, mass defect, binding energy, fissile nuclides and other esoteric

aspects of nuclear physics first thing in the day fell on rather thick heads! But once

we were on our squadrons, we had to pass rigorous theoretical knowledge and 'rig

drill' tests with the Wing Weapons section at periodic intervals, as well as the annual

visit from the deadly serious Weapon Safety Team - and woe betide any crew which

didn't come up to scratch with their knowledge of the WE177B nuclear weapon and

the mandatory requirements of all the procedures associated with it. For in our

ground training we worked as constituted crews as we did for all our flying, except

when an instructor had to occupy one of the seats for a check ride.

Life on the squadron was really very pleasant in those days. We probably flew about

twice per week and the year was divided into six-monthly 'Basic Training

Requirements' periods; it was up to the crew's captain to ensure that all our

requirements in flying, bombing and ground work were correctly completed. Of

course we didn't actually drop real bombs around the countryside, instead the

simulated release point photograph was assessed by Wing Weapons - and any

bomb run which would have resulted in an impact outside the laid down limits was

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the subject of a formal 'long bomb' report! We had the occasional trips to Goose

Bay, Offutt and Malta to enjoy, which primarily involved low flying over different

terrain to that experienced in the UK. There was also the 'Double Top' annual

bombing and navigation competition; all Vulcan force crews (about 60 in my time)

took part and the top 4 were selected for the 'Giant Voice' Strategic Air Command

bombing and navigation competition at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. Crews were

posted initially to the 'Giant Voice Training Flight' at Waddington, where skills were

honed and the radar bombing and navigation systems of aircraft which had been

selected for the competition were finely tuned. In 1979, our crew was lucky enough

to participate in GV, using XH538 which was an ex-Skybolt trials aircraft and also one

of the few 'narrow intake' Vulcan B2s. We had 4 weeks in the States; during the final

competition sortie, one of the events was fighter interception at low level

somewhere over the Great Plains. Our Air Electronics Officer detected and

successfully jammed the threat as it came in, but the fighter closed in yet further just

as we reached an en-route turning point. This was too good an opportunity to pass

up, so it was a very surprised Air National Guard F-106 pilot who suddenly found

himself with a windscreen full of Vulcan breaking hard into him at around 60° angle

of bank - "Jeez, B-52s don't do that!", he later commented. For anyone trained as a

fighter pilot, fighter affiliation was some of the best fun to be had with the Vulcan,

although some of the navigators probably wouldn't agree. Co-ordinated crew

action using the tail warning radar, the radar warning receiver, perhaps some chaff

and flares, plus aggressive manoeuvring often came as a nasty surprise to some

interceptor pilots, who thought our ancient aircraft to be rather easy meat. One

fine day I was flying with another crew, whose captain took us up to around 52000ft

before hauling the aircraft around in a steep turn, much to the consternation of the

F-4 which had been struggling to obtain a simulated Sparrow missile firing solution.

All good things come to an end though. I was selected for Vulcan captaincy in

1979, but instead I asked to be posted to Phantoms, which was accepted. So from

then on the only time I saw a Vulcan was from the opposite side, which soon

revealed to me that as Vulcan crews we hadn't really had much of a clue about

fighter tactics, as the jamming upon which we'd relied so much would just have

acted as a Sparrow magnet - and the Russians probably had something very similar.

With the Victors down at Ascension for the FalkIands War and the VC10K not yet in

service, I also did some tanking from the Vulcan; although we'd feared that the

large wing would have made 'prodding' the drogue quite difficult, we soon found

that the Vulcan was a much nicer aircraft to prod than was the normal Victor K2

and very much nicer than the KC-135 with its infamous boom-drogue adapter.

Apart from seeing the Vulcan at the occasional airshow, I thought that my time with

the Vulcan had come to an end by the time I was flying the VC10K at RAF Brize

Norton, where I was also CFI of the Brize Flying Club. But in April 2005, Mike Pollitt

rang me up to talk about PPL requirements; during the course of our chat, the topic

of Vulcans came up and Mike told me that he was due to give '655 a shake down

taxying session at Wellesbourne Mountford a couple of days later. So I suggested

driving over to meet him in a nearby pub to talk further about his licensing

requirements; of course I was also hoping to be able to watch the taxying session.

However, when Dave Thomas arrived he looked very unwell and told the crew that

he couldn't participate as he'd come down with some nasty incapacitating bug. "If

Derek agrees, would you be happy to help out in the right hand seat?", Mike asked

me. It took me about half a millisecond to make up my mind before saying yes;

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Derek Powell, the 655MaPS chairman, was happy, so for the first time in 25 years I

found myself back in a Vulcan. It was surprising how much came back to me: "Fuel?"

- "Checked, main selected, transfers centre-guarded, one on per group, four MIs

black" etc. came from the deep recesses of long term memory! Engine starting and

some low-speed taxying next, making it a very enjoyable and unexpected day on

which to have met the enthusiastic '655 team for the first time.

The purpose of the engine run and taxying sessions is to ensure that '655 is safe to

participate in the high speed taxying events held annually at Wellesbourne

Mountford's 'Wings and Wheels' day. 2016 was no exception and from what I saw,

the first run was flawless.

Unfortunately the second run couldn't take place due to a snag with the external

power set. Normally this supplies 200 Volts AC and 28V DC to the aircraft before

engine start. Only limited 28V DC is needed, mainly to keep the aircraft battery

sufficiently charged before the engine alternator-driven Transformer Rectifier Units

(TRU) can take over the DC supply requirements after start; these work by

transforming the 200V AC from the aircraft's 4 engine driven alternators to lower

voltage, then rectifying it to 28V DC. But the visiting Vampire T11 had a problem

with its own DC power, so the '655 team kindly loaned 655MaPS' external power set

to help out. They hadn't realised, or been told, that the DC electric motor which is

used to start the Vampire's Goblin engine takes a very high load current. That was

too much for the power set's low capacity TRU to handle, so it failed and was

subsequently unable to supply '655. It might have been possible to start the Vulcan's

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Rover gas turbine Airborne Auxiliary Power Pack from the aircraft battery to obtain

200V AC, but it was by no means certain that the battery had sufficient charge to

do so - and if the battery voltage drops too low it isn't then possible to 'de-latch' it

from the aircraft's DC loads, which can cause serious problems. In fact the Rover

can also be started by a cartridge; this feature was originally required in the event

of a 4-engine flame out, probably as the result of encountering a high-altitude

nuclear blast, so that the Ram Air Turbine keeping the flight controls powered

wouldn't also be tasked with starting the Rover once denser air had been reached.

However, if the 200V AC supply is interrupted on the ground and the correct check

list actions aren't followed, the Rover is automatically set up for a cartridge start,

requiring the panel to be reset for normal DC start. If that action isn't taken, then it

will start rapidly and dramatically, with clouds of black smoke and flames issuing

from the cartridge exhaust. Normally the Crew Chief stands close to the Rover to

check that all is OK when it is started, with an extinguisher at the ready. On my

squadron, one of the AEOs (in fact it was the AEO leader) managed to cartridge

start the Rover on the ground not just once, but twice - and with the same Crew

Chief on both occasions. The cartridge start system on ‘655 has been inoperative

for many years for safety reasons, so this year '655's second run had to be cancelled

as prudence dictated that it simply wouldn't have been reasonable to tax the

venerable aircraft's electrical system unnecessarily. Which was obviously

disappointing for the spectators, but doubly so for Charles and his team who had

spent hours getting '655 ready for the day. I'm assured that a 'trolley-ack', consisting

of several large accumulators wired in series on a mobile trolley, will be available in

future as a back-up for the external power set.

No doubt in 2017, '655 will once again thrill the crowds by thundering down the

runway. There'll probably be other aircraft to see as well, plus an increasing number

of classic cars at the 'wheels' event and all the other attractions which make this

event so enjoyable - and at such a reasonable price. Pass the word!

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A Date for your Diary

Wellesbourne Wings and Wheels 2017 will be held on Sunday 18th June.

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Our New Store Kay Prestidge

The XM655 store is taking shape thanks to our esteemed volunteer Bryan Hull with

help from Jackie Wright. It has been a long time coming but the days of placing our

lovely pieces of merchandise on what was essentially a pasting table with a table

cloth over it are finally over!

With a little work left to do

we now have an area for

our valued visitors to come

and browse the items we

have for sale and also the

space we desperately

needed for storage. We

also have an area now

taking shape that will give

visitors somewhere to sit,

have a cup of tea and see

various videos of XM655

doing what she does

best……..ripping up the

runway!

A new swanky store would not be complete without new swanky merchandise! We

have been working on a few new items, some of you may have already seen our

new clothing and we will soon have a new Polo Shirt, Jacket, pens and a few bits

and pieces that would be ideal as Christmas gifts.

We will soon have all of our items in a newly developed online store so keep an eye

on our website for the launch.

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Notice of Annual General Meeting 2017

The next Annual General Meeting of MaPS will be held at 10.30 am on Saturday, 6th

May 2017. This notice may appear to be somewhat premature, but the publication

date of our Spring Newsletter is such that we would be unable to give the specified

notice as required by the Society’s rules.

As in previous years, the meeting will be held in the Wellington Room at On Track

Aviation, Wellesbourne Airfield (near to the Control Tower and Touchdown Cafe).

All members are welcome and tea/coffee and biscuits will be provided.

The agenda will be:

Chairman’s introduction and annual report

Membership report

Treasurer’s report and approval of annual accounts

Appointment of auditor for the coming year

Any other business

Any items that members wish to add to the agenda must be sent in writing to

The Secretary,

655 MaPS,

Wellesbourne Airfield

Loxley Lane,

Warwick

CV35 9EU

to arrive no later than four weeks before the date of the AGM.

During the afternoon, XM655 will be open to visitors, and we will be carrying out

demonstrations of as many aircraft systems as are possible on the pan. We hope

that combining the AGM and an “open day” for visitors to the aircraft will

encourage more members to attend the meeting.

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Picture Credits

The cover picture and pages 4 & 5 are by Darren Harbar. Page 3 is by Neil Draper,

page 14 by Ollie Cannon, page 17 by Andrew Stratford and page 18 is Clive Hanley.

All other pictures are by Anne-Marie Walduck, Avril Magill and Isi Jackson.

Issue No 36 Autumn 2016 XM655 in the sunshine on a stormy …€¦ · XM655 in the sunshine on a...

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Transcript of Issue No 36 Autumn 2016 XM655 in the sunshine on a stormy …€¦ · XM655 in the sunshine on a...