11 th June 2007

Time wasting drama

As you will all know by now we suffered a serious break in on 9 th May. What appears to be a gang of villains ex Gloucester Council Estates broke into the airfield overnight and then ram raided the roller shutter door on hangar 103. They stole our 7.5T truck filled with tool boxes, welders, compressors, Go Karts, armoured cable, 1T trailer and other smaller electrical tools valued at £45,000. All bar a handful of my own hand tools were recovered by the following afternoon but that’s where the problem just began. The equipment was found on a Travellers site at Cleeve Prior north of Stratford On Avon. This gang is well known to the Police and have a reputation for returning to the scene if their ill gotten gains are recovered. We have spent the past month and many thousands of pounds upgrading the security of Hangar 102 in order to defeat or seriously delay any future attempts. Naturally this has changed our priorities in the short term away from the ‘Image’ projects. However these are now being tackled with urgency.

Luckily the break-in did not involve any of the aircraft and was confined to easily saleable items.

Arrivals & Departures

Within the next week we will be welcoming Paul Higham and his new venture – a Sky Diving simulator – based on a 45ft trailer unit. Those of you who watch the Apprentice on the TV may have seen the technology as one of the ‘treats’ a few weeks ago. That was the only fixed installation in the UK at Milton Keynes . Paul’s is the first mobile installation in the UK .

Possible arrival in the next month are a Fournier motor glider and a taildragger KitFox.

Fuel

Prices remain at £1.27 inclusive of VAT. Stocks are very low so expect a severe price rise when we take our first delivery at LR

Summer Events

637 Glider School are holding their families day on 7 th July. Rumours of some flying display are unconfirmed at present but watch the notice board

We will be hosting our traditional annual summer Bar Be Que later in July. Date and details will be announced very shortly

Reminders

Please ensure that you book in and out on the from provided on the notice board

I will be invoicing for landing fees at the end of this month for the first 6 months of 2007 and will contact all concerned to see whether they wish to pay singly or purchase the annual card.

Flying at the weekend means you must remember to contact the VGS for clearance before you taxi away from the hangar. Their mobile in the Control Caravan is 07786504892

Watch Out’s

Over the next couple of weeks we will be digging up and relaying the damaged areas of concrete on the apron outside and at the entrance of Hangar 102. We will ensure that aircraft can be moved across these areas at all times except the day we actually pour the concrete.

As a result of this work we will be using any surplus concrete to fill the deeper holes on the access road from the gate. Beware of any such holes which will be marked by a cone

Work on the restoration of our ‘Classic’ road roller is progressing well so we should be able to iron out the hard edges to the grass taxiways very shortly

The MoD have a contractor on site over the next month weed killing the runways, scraping and brushing them clean.

The contractors will be harvesting the grass on the airfield later in June. Please keep a sharp lookout for these operators. We will brief you if and when we are advised.

Regards Martin, Martin, Colin, Steve and Ken