Float plane Fly-in, Beale Park, Oct 23rd  2005

For once the weather forecast was right and the morning of the autumn floatplane event at Beale Park dawned with blue skies and no wind.

As we were not manning the rescue boat this time, we didn’t arrive until about 11:30 and by this time there were already many splendid models and pilots enjoying the lovely autumn weather.

To say the location is picturesque is somewhat on an understatement, especially with the trees now starting to display the autumn colours of red and gold, the scene was magnificent, add to this near perfect flying weather, little or no wind, blue skies and a warm day for late October, and good days was promised. We were not disappointed.

Several scale models donned floats to fly, those that I can remember were, Sopwith Pup, Tiger and Gypsy moths and a brace of Magnatilla’s. The grace of these models gently lifting off a tranquil lake cruising around in a scale like manner was a sight to behold.

A whole fleet of Seamaster’s had turned up (I counted 6 at least), two of which unfortunately went home in kit form. One of these I narrowly missed capturing its final moments on video. Whist filming another Seamaster taxing out to take off, you can clearly hear          “ ohhh, ahhhh, whack, splash” on the video as it hit a tree. Hopefully they were not too badly damaged and will live to fly again. We were also treated to Seamaster’s doing aerobatic’s including some ‘knife edge’ stuff.

A stable of Black horse models were there, Super Air, Travel Air and Speed Air all flew from the lake – two of which needed the attention of a vet by the end of the day, and several Wot 4’s did some spectacular aerobatic’s.

The rescue boat was in fairly frequent use, mostly due to stopped engines. We did consider at one point if we needed to send out a rescue boat to the rescue boat as the oarsman seemed to be having a bit of trouble, but he made it back eventually without getting wet.

All in all a very enjoyable day, great weather, great scenery, and superb models and flying. On behalf of all that attended I would like to thank Bob Roper and all that helped organised the day for all their hard work in setting it up an running an excellent day.

Paul Joslyn