A special thanks to Dave Thomas for his kind donation to the Leicester Model Aero Club.

Recently Dave Thomas who lives on a canal-long boat contacted the club and generously offered his models to the club for use by our members.  A big thank you to Dave from the club.  We will ensure that the models are put to good use and used as part of training new members where possible.

 

LMAC Indoor Flying returns for 2021/22

A number of Indoor flying sessions have been booked for the 2021/22 season. The venue is once again the Sports Connexion at Ryton Coventry. The sessions will run on a Sunday evening between 18:00 to 22:00. For the most part, the large blue sports hall has been booked for the sessions.  Please keep an eye on this website, LMAC Facebook Group Page, and the LMAC calendar for any late changes to plans. 

The sessions will be £6 for flyers with Under 14's will be free along with spectators. 

Sadly, there will be no hot drinks or snacks, so please bring your own refreshments.

Sunday 24th October 2021 18:00 to 22:00  Sports Arena

Sunday 21st November 2021 18:00 to 22:00  Sports Hall

**** CANCELLED *****  Sunday 19th December 2021 18:00 to 22:00  Sports Hall **** CANCELLED *****

**** CANCELLED *****  Sunday 23rd January 2022 18:00 to 22:00  Sports Hall **** CANCELLED ***** 

Sunday 20th February 2022 18:00 to 22:00  Sports Hall

**** CANCELLED *****  Sunday 13th March 2022 18:00 to 22:00  Sports Hall **** CANCELLED *****  

GBRCCA Open competition at LMAC 26th September 2021

LMAC hosted a GBRCCA Open Competition on 26th September 2021. The pictures provided by Nick Hammond and Matt Chamberlain show some of the stunning models that were competing on the day.

December 2019 AGM Update

New LMAC Chairman Matt Chamberlain presenting John Payne with the 2019 award of the Jack Marsh Trophy - John as LMAC Secretary continues to keep the membership updated with his excellent club updates and announcements.  Well done John!

As we continued to promote and encourage members to attain the BMFA achievement scheme certificates, certificates were presented on the evening to Rob Macskimming, Tom Barwick and Eric Toon who received their Fixed Wing A certificates.

People who were not at the meeting who also attained certificates were Alex Judea, a Fixed Wing A certificate and Kevin Sarson with an A and B Fixed Wing certificate.

Well done all!

BMFA - Fixed Wing Achievement Scheme Workshop Day at LMAC - 5th May 2019

Many thanks to all those members who took time out to come and learn more about the BMFA Fixed Wing A Test today. Chris Bond and Matt Chamberlain were particularly encouraged and even more so that we were able to successfully carry out four tests and a solo sign off today! 

I'm happy to report that Alex Judea, Rob Mac and Kevin Sarson all successfully attained their A fixed-wing certificates today, with Kevin Sarson going one better and passing the FW B test too! 

Finally, Steve Johnson was signed off to go solo by Chris and stated he wishes to progress to the A test now before too long. 

Kudos to all those that had a go today; It's not easy to put yourself in a test situation, but I'm a great believer in that we need to get out of our comfort zones and put ourselves under a little bit of pressure at times to progress at anything in life. 

We've another Sunday set aside in the calendar for later in the year for another achievement scheme workshop day, but Chris and Matt are more than happy to demonstrate the tests again and assist with your practice - flight and/or questions if you wish. Today was all about the BMFA achievement scheme - I'd say we achieved! :) Enjoy the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend and well done again to all those involved!

Aerodrome / Airport restrictions - Dronesafe - Amendment to the Air Navigation Order

All,

The Department for Transport (DfT) has given notice of an amendment to the Air Navigation Order.

The changes have been expedited in reaction to incidents involving small unmanned aircraft at

Gatwick and Heathrow in the last couple of months.

The BMFA have reported previously on the creation of flight restriction zones around protected

aerodromes, the concept of which was introduced in the Government Response to the 2018

Consultation on Drones published earlier this year and these zones will come into effect from 13th

March 2019. A useful interactive map of the UK has been created by NATS showing the

protected aerodromes with the restriction zones superimposed. 

See https://dronesafe.uk/restrictions/ for further details.

CAP1763 states that ‘the flight restriction zone is active at all times and applies to all small

unmanned aircraft of any mass (even very small ‘toys’)’. This was a surprising development which

would in theory even extend to paper aeroplanes.

If you wish to fly an unmanned aircraft within these restriction zones, then permission will have to

be obtained from air traffic control at the aerodrome. The CAA expect such permissions to be

based on a ‘constructive dialogue between the modellers/model clubs and the relevant aerodrome’

and formalised in a letter of agreement/memorandum of understanding.

One slight benefit included in this ANO update is that the existing restriction on flying unmanned

aircraft over 7kg below 400ft in controlled airspace has now been removed, as the new restrictions

apply to all unmanned aircraft up to 20Kg and maintain the 400ft limit for all unmanned aircraft.

Happily, the Leicester Model Aero Club at Gumley does not fall within this restricted flight zone.

Further info can be found as follows:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-drone-safety-partnership-with-business-launched-as-government-sets-out-plans-to-limit-drone-misuse

https://dronesafe.uk/restrictions/

Further Indoor Flying Dates added for 2019.

Three further Indoor Flying Dates have been booked for early 2019.  Many thanks for your continued support and it's been great to see some new junior flyers and how well the young sponsored pilots are progressing!  Keep it up guys! ;)

• Sunday 13th January 2019
• Sunday 10th February 2019
• Sunday 3rd March 2019

LMAC flying action from Sunday 24th June 2018

LMAC flying action from Sunday 24th June 2018. Pictures by Matt Chamberlain

Lighting up the LMAC sky

Tom Barwick and Rob Mac shared the below pictures of a recent evening flying session demonstrating the effect of light trails - skimming.  Tom and Rob worked together to get these pictures. The first is Rob's attempt at spelling LMAC in light and the other is a general flying flight path.  Very effective guys!

Indoor Flying Dates for 2017/2018 booked

Six Indoor Flying dates booked as follows all 18:30 to 22:00 all in the large blue sports hall at the Sports Connexion in Ryton:

• Sunday 29th October 2017
• Sunday 19th November 2017
• Sunday 10th December 2017
• Sunday 14th January 2018
• Sunday 11th February 2018
• Sunday 11th March 2018

There has been a £5 increase for the venue for the evening (£65 total), but I've negotiated this will be fixed for the 2018/19 season too with no further increase.   Therefore we need 13 people to break even on the evening.  I'm not proposing increasing the cost you pay, but obviously if we cannot get the 13 people to cover the costs then I may need to reassess this. I have the same stipulation with all the bookings that if they get a more lucrative wedding booking, then they may bump us to the Cricket Hall. Obviously they would need to give me plenty of notice on this. As of January 1st 2018, all the nets are being removed from the Cricket Hall, so we'd need to have a look at this to see how it improves are flying options. Hopefully we'll be fine for the large sports hall as per the dates above.   I'll add the dates to the Club Website Calendar and advertise a little wider this year.  Please share with your other flying friends if they wish to attend.  Look forward to see you for the first event on 29th Oct. There is scope to add more dates, but we will assess that as we progress.

Get building a couple of indoor models, I may even retire my indoor Crack Laser which is still going after about four or five indoor seasons!

LMAC Flying Action - Gala Day 2017

A selection of flying action from our excellent Gala Day - 13th August 2017.  Click through into Flickr and feel free to download any images.

Set 1 by Matt Chamberlain

 

Set 2 by Howard Murphy

 

LMAC Flying Action - 23rd July 2017 - Warbird Day 2017

Pics by Matt Chamberlain

LMAC - Flying Action - 2nd April 2017

Flying action shots from LMAC on Sunday 2nd April 2017 - By Matt Chamberlain

LMAC Action - Sunday 15th May 2016

Some action shots from a busy LMAC on Sunday 15th May 2016. Thanks to Howard Murphy for sharing the great shots.

A Good Friday....

Most LMAC members would have studied the Easter weather forecast and concluded that Good Friday was going to offer the best opportunity to fly over the long holiday weekend. Thus far it's proved to be correct and we had 25+ members sign in to fly on Friday 25th March 2016.  Blue skies and not a transmitter mit in sight brought a whole host of new models which were getting their maiden who had not flown at LMAC for some time.

The following set of Flickr pictures shows some of the fine models on display:



It was a Good Friday for most mixed in with a couple of unfortunate casualties to one or two models. One of those was John Paynes competition model which suffered a totally accident mid-air with Thomas Newitt's model as he was practising for his BMFA Fixed Wing A certificate.  Fortunately, Thomas's plane came off in better shape and he later went on to successfully pass the BMFA Fixed Wing A certificate. Well done Thomas!

Also doing very well was younger step brother Louis Pilon who very successfully buddied up with Father Ian for his first taste of RC flying outside of the simulator.  He took to it like a duck from water and was landing the plane after three flights! Well done to Louis too and it won't be long before he's taking his Fixed wing certificate at this rate!

As always the patch is looking in excellent condition despite the rain, so get out and enjoy some flying!

A thanks on two accounts.....

You may recall earlier this year we assisted the Widow (Lynn Atkins) of ex LMAC member Stuart Atkins in selling a number of Stuarts prized models?  Lynn kindly donated a Boomerang trainer which was in need of a bit of repair; Very kindly, Roy Monk offered and repaired the tail sections of the trainer. LMAC now have a trainer which is available to train new LMAC pilots.

Many thanks to both Lynn and Roy!

Flying action at LMAC - Sunday 4th October 2015

Some shots of the flying action at LMAC on Sunday 4th October. Photos by Colin Wilson & Matt Chamberlain.

LMAC flying action from Sunday 27th September 2015

LMAC flying action from Sunday 27th September 2015 By Matt Chamberlain & Howard Murphy

Further Gala Day pics by Howard Murphy.

A fantastic set of photos from Howard Murphy taken on LMAC Gala Day on Sunday 9th August 2015.  Enjoy and many thanks Howard.

Two very beautiful smiles as the cover photo too :)

'A' Success - Luke Oliver and John Palmer

Congratulations to both Luke Oliver and John Palmer who successfully passed their BMFA Fixed Wing A tests in the first half of August.  Well done chaps!