21st September 2018

Alan Smith

Alan Smith, former BAe Concorde test pilot and Training Captain will recount his experiences testing the Big White Bird and teaching airline pilots to fly it.  This will form part of his flying life story beginning with RAF service on Gloucester Meteor night fighters and including airline flying experiences with numerous British operators

12th October 2018

Chris Bigg

The Bristol Aeroplane Company between 1945 and 1960

This is the talk that was originally scheduled for 2nd March 2018 but was postponed because of the heavy snowfall

2nd November 2018

Paul Ross

Paul Ross of the Silver City Association will give a talk on the History of the airline.

Silver City was the airline which operated for 16 years from the late 1940s pioneering the carriage of cars by air between Kent and the North Coast of France, long before RO RO ferries were invented or the Channel Tunnel was dug.  They used Bristol Freighters and subsequently had the bigger Super Freighters developed specially for the service.  The company operated a total of 18 other types of  aircraft including the Handley Page Hermes airliner, powered by four Bristol Hercules engines

30th November 2018

Paul Beaver

Paul Beaver, the well-known Author, Broadcaster and Historian will give a talk on the May 1943 operation of 617 Squadron, the Dam-Busters, against the dams of the Ruhr valley in Germany

18th January 2019

Howard Torode

The History and Development of High Performance Sailplanes

8th February 2019

Neil Cloughley

The Bio-Electric-Hybrid-Aircraft (BEHA), a 10+ seat aircraft with a hybrid propulsion system intended to revolutionise urban flying

8th March 2019

Group Captain (ret) Jock Heron OBE

"MRCA - The birth of Tornado".  This will touch on the background events including the 1957 defence review, TSR2, AFVG and then the 1968 shambles when the F-111 cancellation left the RAF with no proper strike/attack future programme.  He will then describe the evolution of the MRCA that resulted in the Tornado. 

Further talks are currently being finalised, information on these will be added here as it becomes available