Tuesday the 14th of July 2015 saw members of the South Essex Amateur Radio Society meet for their monthly club night.
*Apologies* – Subscribers may have received a badly-formed email from us about this article. It seems a partial draft was auto-posted. Sorry!
The evening started with the usual SEARS greeting, and the chance to catch up with fellow members and visitors over a cup of tea, to catch up about all things amateur radio.
After some social time, the SEARS team outlined some of the events that will be keeping SEARS members busy over the next couple of months – two upcoming events at Canvey’s Island Yacht Club, a barbeque in Wakering, a flypast at Bradwell, and another outing at the Bay Museum – If you want to get out and about at field events in the South of the county, SEARS will be very busy, so go along and see them in action.
After the club update, time to move on to the main feature:
Flying High with Steve 2E0UEH
Steve, who’s the SEARS Training Manager, has around 250 flying hours to his name, and although he’s not been licensed to fly for a year or so, he’s still very passionate about flying, and this came across during Steve’s talk.
Before the talk started, Steve showed a video of himself at the controls of a single engine plane performing checks, taxiing, taking off, completing a circuit of Lydd airport, and making a smooth touchdown.
Steve them moved on to give everyone a feel for what’s involved in getting a pilot’s licence – the various exams that need to be taken and the constant need to re-learn and stay up to date – a good job we don’t have to do the same in amateur radio!
Next, it was time for a look in Steve’s flight bag, and to pass around a few flight objects, such as a navigation chart, various checklists, flight plans weather maps and an interesting looking analogue flight computer.
Steve talked us through some of the etiquette in use in the cockpit, and explained that the only way to truly understand flying, is to try it – the SEARS audience were promoted to pilots for the evening, and talked through the pre-flight, takeoff and landing procedures (visual and instrument approaches) – apparently the handbrake doesn’t do a lot in mid-air!
In closing, Steve talked about one of his more scary experiences – recovering from a stall and a spin – not for the faint-hearted.
Steve wrapped up by tuning in to the local aviation weather report on 136.050MHz – just to check we’d all be able to make it home…
Thanks to Steve 2E0UEH for an enlightening talk, and to SEARS for the hospitality, as ever.
Was a very interesting evening , well done Steve ,xx