August’s winners of the 500 Club have been drawn:
| 1st | 1459 | A R Taylor | £116.40 |
| 2nd | 6805 | J Finnimore | £58.20 |
| 3rd | 528 | L H Smith | £43.65 |
| 4th | 1005 | F E Watson | £36.38 |
| 5th | 7802 | N Benson | £21.83 |
| 6th | 5916 | D Surfleet | £14.55 |
If you would like to take part in the 500 Club, then download the application form and return it today!
The latest winners of the 500 Club have been drawn, July’s results are:
| July | ||||
| Position | Member | Name | Prize Money | |
| 1st | 6814 | D Tribe | £116.40 | |
| 2nd | 1500 | J D Michie | £58.20 | |
| 3rd | 588 | J Whitbread | £43.65 | |
| 4th | 4736 | R J Battams | £36.38 | |
| 5th | 2936 | J Hanna | £21.83 | |
| 6th | 393 | J Kirby | £14.55 |
If you would like to take part in the 500 Club, then download the application form and return it today!
For a number of years, a key point on the SVAS Education Plan has been what we can do to help tackle the chronic shortage of women in engineering. We were delighted when the Collection agreed to host an event on International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) on Friday 23rd June. The Collection’s High Flyers event was an activity driven after school careers event very much aimed at inspiring and engaging young ladies with the myriad of opportunities available to them in all fields of engineering and enabling them to meet a diverse and eclectic mix of role models.
The attending companies varied from local companies such as Hitching based civil engineering consultants Stomor and West Anglia Training Association to international companies such as Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems, FE and HE establishments such as Bedford College and Coventry University and associated organisations such as Aviation Skills Partnership and RAeS. The event was not exclusively aeronautical, with civil engineering, electrical engineering and chemical engineering companies booked to attend, but it did have a strong aviation flavour.
The focus was very much on inspiring young ladies into a career in engineering and all exhibitors actively engaged with visitors. Plenaries were delivered by a diverse mix of young and old; students through to industry experts; hobbyists through to a national champion / record breaker.
Not only was the SVAS was pleased to provide behind the scenes support for this event, but a number of SVAS ground crew also attended, sharing their experiences of working at the Collection on display days and how the experience has had a positive impact on their career choice.
Initial feedback from visitors and exhibitors has been extremely positive and we look forward to this event becoming a permanent fixture on the Collection’s calendar.
The SVAS was approached by the Moth Club earlier in the year with a view to helping them select candidates for Teague Challenge flights – these are flights at their Charity Flying Day that are sponsored by Moth Club members with a view to inspiring the next generation of pilots. Armed with fifty free flights, our Student Section Coordinator Matthew Studdert-Kennedy and Collection pilot Scott Butler set about designing a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Outreach programme around the history of the DH Moth series.
Matthew then had the unenviable task of contacting all the schools and arranging convenient dates and times when he and SVAS ground crew stalwart and de Havilland Educational Trust Chair Ian Oliver could go in to the schools. Over the next six weeks Ian and Matthew (with assistance from Scott and Moth Club Chairman Stuart McKay) presented to over a thousand children, who then went on to take part in competitions set by their schools to determine who would win the flights. Tasks varied from designing a homebuilt glider from recycled materials to giving a powerpoint presentation to fellow students on Bernoulli’s Principle and ensured it was those who really engaged with the task who went on to win their flights.
Extremely challenging conditions for the Charity Flying weekend meant it was never going to be possible to fly everyone, but a sterling effort from the Moth Club saw 80% of the pupils who attended taken up for a flight.
The event is best summed up by one young prize winner who went on to write “I was completely buzzing for ages afterwards, because I’d never had an experience like this before, and I’d conquered my fear of heights, and my fear of the unknown, and couldn’t stop telling everyone how much I loved it and wanted to do it again.” We look forward to supporting the event again next year.
The Leyland SG7 bus that has recently been purchased for the Shuttleworth Collection has been repainted to reflect the Shuttleworth family’s Lancashire roots and will now be known as the ‘Red Rose’. The grand unveiling will take place at the Shuttleworth Collection on Saturday 1st April at midday.
The SVAS organised Scale Model Exhibition took place on the 19th February and has proved to be a very successful event in many ways.
While traders and exhibitors filled the majority of the engineering hangar at Shuttleworth, the Spitfire remained on display to provide a contrast to the smaller models displayed around it and to also allow a number of happy visitors to take the opportunity to sit in the Spitfire.
Event organiser and SVAS Chairman Kevin Panter said “The event has been the most successful yet, both in terms of visitor numbers attending and also in the quality of models. The standard of modelling this year has been exceptional; the judges have had a difficult time in picking the winners of the competitions”
The winners of the Competitions were:
All photographs provided by courtesy of Peter Baughan.
The Shuttleworth Trust has taken the opportunity to acquire a third bus from the renowned collection of early Leyland buses restored by Mike Sutcliffe MBE.
The Leyland SG7 was built in 1923 for Brookes Brothers, Rhyl who traded as White Rose Motors. It is a 40 seat bus with full front and a dual entrance body which is split into two saloons.
The Shuttleworth Trust decided to acquire the bus because of its uniqueness and also to supplement the wedding packages that are offered in The House and The Swiss Gardens.
Kevin Panter, Chairman of the Shuttleworth Veteran Aeroplane Society commented ‘The SVAS is very pleased to be able to help the Shuttleworth Trust by providing 50% of the funding for the acquisition of the ‘White Rose’ bus as it fits in with the early motor vehicles at the Collection. It will join the other vintage Leyland buses, which have also been purchased with assistance from the SVAS, in being used for visitor experiences of 1920s travel in short rides around the Shuttleworth estate.’
Tuesday 3rd January 2017’s episode of Great British Railway Journeys will stop at Biggleswade and feature the Shuttleworth Collection and Swiss Garden. It will be broadcast on BBC2 at 6.30pm and will be available on iPlayer shortly afterwards.
The Great Flying Challenge series will take off on Monday 5 September at 19.30 on BBC1.
Dick Strawbridge has set a challenge to recreate Harry Ferguson’s pioneering aircraft, and the BBC crew had lots of really helpful advice from our engineers and Chief Pilot Dodge Bailey. A short clip from the programme is available on the BBC website
