Midland Indoor Flyers – New Club Formed

A potted history of MIF ( Midland Indoor Flyers ) from Andy Beere.

For a number of years I have assisted Peter Thompson with organising indoor flying events in the Lichfield area, managing to just about break even money wise. John Minchell was the chairman/organiser of the Shopshire area indoor flying club based solely at RAF Shawbury. Unfortunately the RAF hanger which was used for indoor flying has now been repurposed as a BMX track and is unavailable for indoor flying.

Under Shropshires constitution it was voted to give the remaining money’s to Peter and Myself but only if we were affiliated to the BMFA as a club, hence the formation of MIF. Peter is the Chairman / organiser, I’m the Secretary and Roger Plant the Treasurer. We have used other venues in the past i.e. Walsall and Daventry but at this moment in time we are using two sports halls CTA and EDA and also, more recently, Whitchurch Sports Hall.

The details of our venues are:-

Bridge Cross Road.,

Burntwood,

Staffs.

WS7 2DB

Pool Rd.,

Burntwood,

Staffs.

WS7 3QW

St. Mary’s St.,

Whitchurch

SY13 1QY.

This Hall is very slightly smaller than the other two hall’s, which are standard badminton sports halls, but it is posting the better times for all duration models! Hence our push to get some more flying there, even if it is mid-week.

 The usual costs at our events are CTA, £15.00; EDA and Whitchurch, £10.00 and any spectators anywhere £2.00.

If you join MIF as an individual, which is free, you will receive regular updates on venues, times, costs etc.

These are primarily events for free-flight flyers who you would trust to respect the flying arrangements. We welcome newcomers. Flyers must be BMFA members because we’re a BMFA affiliated club but non-BMFA guests may fly a small number of times. For free-flight, guests may fly on one occasion, once the guest has their own model/s;. I don’t envisage flyers loaning models to strangers and to me there seems little involvement in simply launching someone else’s models. For radio models, we do not have the facility to train radio fliers unfortunately, so ‘have a go’ is not offered. Membership of the organising club is not necessary to be able to fly at the meetings. There is a fee for flyers. Spectators £2 and BMFA Junior flyers are free of charge.

A quick run through of what I want to see flying at these sessions, and what not. Pretty much anything fre-flight I can conceive of but a big CO2 or fast electric motor will chop up a stick and tissue model so the key is consideration when you launch. If each flight lasted 30 seconds and there were 3 models in the air at a time, there would be >1000 ‘slots’ to share between less than 20 of us. Electric is 1S brushed only, capacitor ok. Radio is bricks only and no separate servos, no solid foam, no Ember. The demand for the latter types is waning. Micro Aces models are ok because they require as much building as stick and tissue but perhaps particularly for these, pilots should have regard for what is already in the air when launching. Super lightweight foam ready-made models like the Ares and Vapor range are ok. The Tony Ray range have been successfully demonstrated in freeflight – R/C versions may be trialled but their performance may exclude them in practice. Anything else/new please bring it to discuss with the organiser first.

The key is, it is a build ‘n’ fly, not buy ‘n’ fly event, organised for build ‘n’ fly modellers, primarily free-flight.”

Further details regarding the venues and general flying queries can be obtained by emailing Andy Beere andybeere@yahoo.co.uk