LAA Strut News
Struts 4U by Anne Hughes
T
he record for the most members attending any LAA Strut meeting must surely go to the Suffolk Coastal Strut. In January, the Strut hosted a GASCo Safety Evening and over 600 people joined for the online event. Mick Gill presented the programme, and one of the speakers on this occasion was Steve Slater, which helped to give the evening a ‘family’ feel. The key points, under the titles of Human Factors, Loss of Control and How Safe are You? also included the use of ‘Threat and Error’ management, in connection with the risk of mid-air collision. Usefully too, we were reminded to plan, plan and plan, and take into account the ‘startle’ effect and the fast reaction needed to respond to the unexpected. Inadvertent complacency, distraction, currency and recency are things that can affect us all, and this was a really useful evening, with thanks to SCS for hosting the event. At the end of the evening GASCo were able to ‘sign the logbooks’ of attendees using a link. If you would like to see some of the slides used in the presentation, please visit www.gasco.org.uk and click on the Return to Flying Course at the bottom of the home page. A recording of the webinar is available: https://tinyurl. com/1t6qyqjf. Continuing on the theme of safe flying, Neil Wilson, Chairman of the Wessex Strut wrote: “For our monthly January meeting we arranged a Zoom event with Jon Roper, the Marketing Manager of Trig Avionics, presenting on Electronic Conspicuity. Jon spoke about the advantages of seeing and being seen electronically, which many of you may have read about in some Ian Fraser’s articles on this subject in earlier editions of Light Aviation. Jon also explained about Safety Integrity Level (SIL) and how it affects which ADSB ‘out’ transmissions were ‘seen’ by other ‘in’ recipients – SIL 1 providing the preferred arrangement for Europe. I think everyone found the presentation not only interesting but it was successfully aimed at a level so it wasn’t too technical but had enough content to cover those points for people who knew more than the basics. Some good questions were posed to Jon at the end as well, I’m sure helping many who are considering electronic conspicuity but
38 | LIGHT AVIATION | March 2021
Main We were sorry to hear from David Millin that Terry Case, who set up Farway Common Airfield in East Devon in 1985, had passed away. This lovely airfield is a popular used fly-in venue and Terry will be missed by us all. Photo: Sophia Smith. Above Paul Gibbs enjoys the aerobatic capabilities of his unique SAH-1. Right RIP Terry Case, 19 June 1926 – 8 January 2021. are unsure of which system to adopt. In all, we had 68 people from not only the Wessex Strut, but also Bristol, Devon, Andover Struts, and others.” Meanwhile the Devon Strut’s Zoom meeting for January was on the subject of Wisdom and Experience in predicting
