Our Next Meeting
Please note the venue bar is cash only
Non Members Fees
Guest Speaker Nights £5
In-house Speaker Nights £2
This includes a light buffet, tea/coffee & 1 x raffle ticket
Yearly WNAS Membership £20
Simon Gladas from Bentwaters Aviation Society is making a rather long journey to give us a talk on the history of RAF Bentwaters. The Suffolk airbase was first brought into service in WWII this base remained active until returned to the MOD and subsequent decomissioning in 1993. It is the now the home of Bentwaters Cold War Museum and several Cold War era airframes
Last month’s write up
Last months talk was presented by Charles Howard-Vyse on the subject of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and it relevance in the modern world. Charles was a RAF Navigator and spent most of his flying career on the Panavia Tornado, indeed he reckons he has ‘Tornado’ imprinted through him like a stick of rock. He made certain to empathises that he was aircrew on the mud moving version (Strike/Attack) and not what I gathered from his tone the the not overly impressive, in his view, ’Fighter’ version. Other viewpoints are available!
In order to continue his career progression he opted to move over to NATO in 2012 and served at various locations throughout Europe. He made clear that NATO is a political organisation, not a military one and as such suffers from all the issues that politics suffer from in various countries, including a bloated bureaucracy, the ability to boot significant issues so far down the road they disappear into the long grass or just talk around a problem in language so pretentious and elongated that the meaning is lost aka the BBC comedy ‘Yes Minister'*
He was also pretty scathing about the ability of MoD to mess up our defence procurement, and that fact the young inexperienced advisors are asking either the wrong questions, or massaging their questions in such a way they get the answer they want. Worrying but very relevant in light of recent events especially as it seems to take over a fortnight to dispatch a destroyer to the Mediterranean, when in 1982 we put together a complete Task Force inside a week, and they were worried about cutbacks then. I reckon they’d be spinning in their graves now!
Notwithstanding all of the issues Charles reckoned that NATO was a worthwhile organisation and despite everything it does actually work, indeed at the moment it is the only viable show in town. Discuss?
News in brief……….
Our Friday morning coffee socials are a great way to keep in touch if you cant make our main meeting. Non aviation related we meet at the bowls club for 11am and chat about anything. Quite often there’s cake too!
Please take note of the advertised flyer. More information on this event can be found here….https://www.aerosociety.com/Marham
Non members attendance charges. WNAS has taken the decision to officially start charging a small amount for non members who attend our evenings, this is to help cover costs of speaker’s fees and catering. Becoming a WNAS member remains the most cost effective method of enjoying the Society,
We are always looking for speakers for our meetings, if you have any association or interest in aviation and would like to tell us about it please contact us using the attached form
