An invitation from Guild Trustee Richard Folkes saw a small group visit Middle Wallop’s Historic Army Aircraft Flight (HAAF) in early April. Richard’s involvement in army aviation cannot be given justice here suffice to say he literally opened doors for us!

After security checks, we arrived at Hangar 3 on the historic base which saw use not only by the RAF, but Fleet Air Arm and USAAF during WW2. The flight’s aircraft are arranged in a spacious hangar but with no barriers and common sense we were free to paint all before us.

Lunch was taken in the officer’s mess; an historic building of pre-war expansion era. Not only dining in fine settings, but surrounded by original art of the very highest calibre; Wootton, Shepherd, Ken Howard RA, and Michael Turner to name but a few.

After a convivial lunch, we were back working up to the critique with coffee and home-made cake to help proceedings. At end of the day special mention must be made of John Wynne Hopkins who generously gifted two original paintings over to the Historic Flight to raise much needed funds.

A huge thank you to all at HAAF and to our trustee Richard Folkes who showed great enthusiasm at our critique, can we convince him to take up pencils at another meeting soon?!

Rob Hames GAvA West Region Organiser