Airfields damaged by Storm Arwen

Storm Arwen caused serious damage to Eshott and Athey’s Moor Airfields, with winds peaking at 98mph. At Eshott, half of the clubhouse roof was torn off and flooding caused further damage to the reception and classroom areas. Richard Pike, one of the directors at Eshott told Light Aviation, “The main communal hangar was missing roof panels which had fallen into the building, luckily they were caught by the bird netting below which avoided serious damage to vintage aircraft stored in there.”

“Unfortunately, elsewhere on the airfield 10 individual hangars sustained serious damage, with two hangars completely collapsed and a third partially collapsed. It was clear early on that we had a total loss of a valued resident aircraft, the group-owned EV97 G-CDVD. Several aircraft sustained damage of some nature, and three hangars were deliberately razed to the ground to make the site safe. Five aircraft had to be relocated to the already brimmed communal hangar, meaning we were unable to offer any real assistance to our neighbours at Athey’s Moor Airfield, who were hit even worse than ourselves.

“A huge clean up operation followed that week, which was difficult for our team who were already stretched trying to keep up with other areas of the business. With power down for nine days, our mobile phones were busy with calls from helicopter companies running emergency patrols for power lines and pipelines surveys. The crews of PDG and Western Power worked

LAA Engineering fee changes

At the November Board meeting, it was agreed that we will increase key engineering fees, most notably Permit renewal and some admin fees from 1 January 2022.

While we appreciate that no-one likes a price increase, this is the first increase in engineering fees since 2015, and the overall impact on a member’s annual cost of flying is minimal – typically costing an LAA aircraft owner just £20 extra per year. They will help fund much of our engineering restructuring, which will in future give better member service, and help with increased liability insurance premiums.

Not all fees are increased. Permit renewal fees, category and registration change fees are the only ones affected. A incredibly hard and were under huge pressure to report back on hundreds of miles of infrastructure, and we were very pleased to be able to support their helicopter operations with ground handling and refuelling.

“A surprise call came from the Civil Air Patrol who asked us to support them in transporting seal pups that had been washed off the rocks during the storm. A Cessna 210T was used to fly the seal pups from Eshott to the Cornish Seal Sanctuary. We’ve since heard that all of the seal pups made a full recovery.

“All in all a heartwarming effort from airfield members, staff and friends to start the process of recovery for their local airfield.” full list of changes can be found on page 38 of this issue.

Project registration, first issues, transfer from CAA to Permit fees all remain unchanged, as we want to help facilitate new aircraft being added to the LAA fleet. Mod and repair fees remain unchanged, as we will, during 2022, separately review the charging structure for these activities.