THE MICROLIGHT FLYING CLUB - Your Club

We have a monthly get together in a local pub "The Plough" at East Stratton near Popham on the last Tuesday every month. This is where we have some interesting events like for instance our Eagle awards once a year when pilots who've qualified for their licences receive a beautiful personally engraved golden eagle award from a notable figure in the aviation world who gives us an interesting talk first.

One year we had the Syncro Pair from the Red Arrows do this for us after giving a riveting presentation with videos of their behind the scenes activities.

Another year we had Eve Jackson present the awards. She flew the first microlight from England to Australia and didn't she have a tale to tell!

Then there was Judy Leden, the world hang gliding champion. Judy gave us a stunning account with some incredible photos of her trip in a microlight exploring the erupting crater of a volcano in some remote area of the world.

Richard Meredith-Hardy too; he gave us a wonderful account of his microlight flight from the UK to Africa.

We've had loads of other notables do this for us since 1984 including Brian Cosgrove who's now retired but was the BMAA Chief Executive and still is a very knowledgeable meteorologist and author of several books.

And of course the late Ann Welch who was the first BMAA President. She was real mover and shaker when it came to aviation with a very enviable flying record. Ann was one of an elite group of women pilots who used to ferry Spitfires and the like during the last world war and she went on to become very famous in the gliding world. She too has written many books on gliding and weather.

We also have slightly more mundane events of course but they're usually aviation orientated and extremely interesting so we always have a good turnout. So much so in fact that sometimes we can't fit everyone in!

...and of course we have the odd party now and then.