Vintage Minor Register

Today I sent in our request to the RAF Events Team for Battle of Britain Memorial Flight support for Saturday 18th July 2015! This is one of the longest lead tasks which have to be made well in advance - in fact by the end of September this year.

I put in the request too late for this year, which was, in a way, fortunate, since it would have been weathered off anyway! Her'e's hoping for great weather and some great air support for next year!

Delighted to announce that Colin Lee has kindly offered to take over the management of entries for 2015 from Frank Ashley who has performed this role for the last four years. Colin's UK address will appear on the Summer Rally and Pre-War Prescott entry forms which will become available shortly.

Thanks Colin, and thanks to Frank for doing such a great job for us since 2011!

I just updated the Pre-War Prescott website and opened entries! Last year, this happened in December, but I have already had numerous enquiries, so I decided to get things up and running earlier this time.

The website is at http://www.prewarprescott.com and, as usual, will carry all the news updates as planning progresses.

Note that VMR members can enter for just GBP 25, which this year gets you your entry plus a free climb plus a free copy of the commemorative programme. I'll have the VMR Summer Rally/Pre-War Prescott entry form prepared and uploaded to the VMR website shortly, and this will also include the Sunday nav rally and scenic tour.

Just received an e-mail from Alex Dempster in New Zealand who becomes the first VMR member to book in for next July! He and his wife joined us this year, and must have enjoyed themselves, as they have already booked their flights for next July.

In other news, we are expecting a Dutch MG contingent to join us for the first time next year.

Let's get the winter over and roll on summer again! We had a line of storms blow through here last week, and when the cloud lifted, all the mountains around us were snow-capped for the first time this season.

This morning, Colin Lee forwarded me the first entry for Pre-War Prescott 2015. William Hearne has entered his 1922 GN, thereby becoming entry number one!

Delighted to have received an entry for the weekend from Harold Blair in the post today. He's coming down from Cumbria with his '34 2-seater. He was out of the country last year, so was disappointed to miss our local event (for him) in the Lakes.

This bring to eight the Minors declared or entered for July so far, plus the M's of Roger Burnett and Frank Ashley. Keep them coming!

Flights booked!

This year, for the first time, we're bringing one of our granddaughters with us - Miss Sophia Rose, aged 3 - got to start them young! She's cuteness personified IMHO, and game for anything - including blasts up the hill!

We're flying Seattle/Vancouver/Heathrow arriving Sunday 12th, spending a few days in Bath, then to our old RAF friends Peter and Ally Balding in Cirencester midweek who will be joining us at Prescott on Saturday. We'll be checking out the Sunday rally route on Thursday this year, so we'll have plenty of time to greet the Friday night campers in the Orchard on Friday evening before heading to the Shutters in Gotherington for the Friday evening bash.

58 entries so far - 8 Minors, 12 MMM. Oldest entry so far is the 1922 GN Akela - all setting up to be a superb weekend.

Well, the bad news is that we were unsuccessful in our bid to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight this year - they are going to be at full stretch all season because of the 75th Anniversary, so this isn't too surprising.

But the good news is that Paul Harvey has confirmed his pre-war Tiger Moth for the day. If you recall, he was going to be overhead last year's event, but the dreadful weather confined him to his hangar in Norfolk!

So we're going to try again this year. Paul plans to position the aircraft at Kemble on Friday afternoon, fly the display for us on Saturday and then set course back to Old Buckenham after his display.

This morning I received eight entries from the Dutch MG Group, bringing their contingent to 9 MMM cars. They have all entered for the whole weekend so should make a spectacular addition to the 13 MMM's already entered. Its going to be a very Morris/MG day at Prescott!

Hi Ian, more bad news I'm afraid - depending on your point of view anyway.
I am sorry to say that we have a big calendar clash and will not be able to make Vintage Prescott this year.
Such a pity as we did enjoy last year's event notwithstanding the awful weather.
So I hope that it is a great success and there is always 2016!

Our Summer Rally and Pre-War Prescott is 100 days away today! This week we received no less than eight entries from Dutch MMM owners who will be ‘raiding’ us this year in force. They have all also entered for the evening Battle of Britain Victory Party on Saturday evening and the Sunday rally to make a weekend of it. With other entries coming in from Holland, Germany, Spain and even New Zealand, our overseas visitors will certainly add an international flavor to the weekend’s proceedings!

Potentially fantastic news!

We weren't successful in our bid to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight this year - because they will be at full stretch on the day at RIAT where 12 Spits and 5 Hurricanes, plus the Lanc are going to be gathered as they also celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

However, one of the Hurricanes is Peter Vacher's which is the ONLY genuine surviving airworthy fighter that saw combat during the Battle of Britain. Peter and I have been friends for 35 years and his wife Polly owns the Hundred Pound Minor at Beaulieu.

Peter and I are cooking up a cunning plan to get his Hurricane out of RIAT Fairford after their display on Saturday so it can display for us in the evening over our Battle of Britain Victory Party on the hill. Keep your fingers crossed that I can navigate the air traffic red tape to make this happen, but with our very good contacts in the RAF CT, I'm very hopeful!

We had a BBMF Hurricane flypast in 2013, but this would be a full display. Per ardua ad astra!

http://www.hurricanedisplay.co.uk/

Derek Guck is another ex-pat Brit living in Florida. He keeps his car collection in the UK, including his Hundred Pound Minor. He will be flying over to bring it to our Summer Rally weekend this year for the first time. This brings to ten the number of Minors booked in so far.

Hawker Hurricane R4118 confirmed for Prescott on Saturday evening!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6m7z2HPW34

More good news!

Elizabeth Halls will be bringing her Singer Le Mans to Pre-War Prescott again this year - as part of her 'Where They Served' airfield tour in aid of the RAF Benevolent Fund and in memory of her night fighter father who owned and cherished an identical Le Mans during the war. Last year, I think we gathered six Le Mans to support Elizabeth who is now about to commence her commemorative tour of all 59 airfields up and down the country that her father landed at during the war. The actual Tiger Moth in which her father learned to fly will be displaying for us during the lunch break. It was scheduled to join us last year, but the Biblical tempest kept it tightly in its hangar!

Elizabeth's 'Where They Served' tour website may be found at http://www.wheretheyserved.com.

Per Ardua Ad Astra!