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"Grass Roots 2011":

After three roll-overs Rob Cross and team finally announced that the world renowned Grass Roots Meet, at the delightful Sackville Lodge airfield near Riseley just north of Bedford, a go-go for the weekend of the 1st and 2nd October.More...This was deemed cutting it a bit fine by some but any misgivings were quickly dispelled when the dear old metman promised a fine weekend. Even Friday looked good so no setting up camp in the rain!!

This is ‘The other Icicle Meet’ and with no red tape, great food, great socialising and flying in a well-friendly area, it shouldn’t be missed. Its what ballooning is all about. Now I always intend to take a balloon to the event but I always manage to get booked up for check flights of one sort or another so it is probably never going to happen and this year was no different. I’d promised I'd do a check flight over in Lincolnshire on the Friday night so was going to miss the first slot. Saturday morning was a PPL check flight with the slots on Saturday evening and Sunday morning reserved for other thingys!
The flight in Lincolnshire was a CPL for Chris Freeman. After a valiant tether we flew from Little Bytham, landing heroically in Kelsby some 40 minutes later. Now to the less well educated Little Bytham sports a fine viaduct (under which Chris lives) which carries the East Coast Mainline and is where the Mallard hit 126mph in 1938, still the official record for a steam train. There was once pub in the village called The Mallard but that sadly closed but to my joy the Willoughby Arms, just down the road, which was once the terminus building of the Edenham and Little Bytham Railway, was open so all was well, especially with Absolution ale at a respectable 5.3%! With all that steam stuff going on, and the fact we nigh on flew over the trackside memorial to the event, he passed.
Now driving is not my forte unless there is little or nothing else on the road so Jane had already had to chauffeur me up and down the A1 on Friday and so, as she seemed to handle that quite well, come Saturday morning, was summoned by the alarm to provide a similar service to Sackville. Now the victim for the PPL check flight was Adam Griffiths who hadn’t got off to a good start by suggesting that briefing was at six o’clock when in fact it was at quarter to seven! Tea and a fine bacon sandwich (with onions) helped the shock of being early. Conditions were near perfect and Adam took me for a fine flight in G-BEEI, one of the oldest balloons I have done a check flight in. Spotting a landing strip just outside Keyston, Adam made a fine approach but was thwarted at the last by a small noisy aeroplane that decided to take off just as we were on finals. Adam courteously plopped us down in the plough just before the strip and we dragged a short way to the airfield track. All was well and another PPL check out to Sackville!
Back at Sackville Jane had returned from walking the dogs so we did a tour of the campsite meeting up with old friends and getting a very fine cuppa from with the Symonds, who have finally decided to sell their lovely little balloon and retire from ballooning and concentrate on their Triumph TR6. Lunch followed and was a fine affair with a large lump of pig roast, something my dog showed intense interest in!
Before we knew it the evening briefing was upon us and Gavin the Chadders was ushering me towards a 140, large by Sackville standards! This was a flight to add Group ‘B’ to his commercial licence, I was told. We launched in a fine old manner. Approaches, emergencies and all the general passenger flying exercises were completed well and following the most impressive descent and landing in an old ridge and furrowed field, already occupied by Barry Newman and company, that many a crusty balloonist would have been proud to have achieved, he was pronounced fit for purpose. It was decided the debrief would be best carried out in the comfort of the bar at Sackville so, after collecting Chadders senior and his one-man basket from a field in the middle of nowhere, the course was set for home. I do feel that the route back may not have been that direct as there appeared to be some confusion between the Tomtits and iPhones that had been turned on by the Chadwicks in general to help guide us back.
Back at Sackville…..Jane had at some stage met up with Celia Kunert shortly after our departure and as a result was well down her eleventeenth vodka and tonic. The dogs were patrolling plates of grub and the beer was fast running out. We had to get back that evening as Jane was due to take five horses to a Show in the morning so her remains were poured into the car and we bade a fond farewell until the morning. Why on earth Bedford does not have an East West ring road defeats me but I only managed to go wrong once in the one way system going back. The dogs were comatose in the back.
Five o’clock Sunday morning and Barry Conway turned up as arranged and we set off back to Sackville. Barry used to run the Unipart Balloon Club so the early start didn’t seem to phase him. Once again I took a wrong turn in Bedford but soon recovered after nipping smartly the wrong way down a one way street.
I was going to be doing a Base and Line check with Dave Court (the hard working, long suffering BBAC Training Officer) in the 140 which Gavin kindly lent us. The Loughborough boys had a space in their shiny new balloon and very kindly offered Barry a flight so Dave, Andy Kaye, his daughter Chloe and I wobbled off into the sky. The 140 was a bit wheezy so flying light was a bonus! This time we headed out a bit more to the right of the evening’s track and had a lovely flight landing next to Barry Newman (again) just short of the A604. The farmer was there to greet us and Andy arranged to take him and his kids for a flight in his plane in the afternoon. All was fine.
Back at Sackville………..The mandatory tea and bacon sandwiches were consumed and we set about completing even more paperwork. Barry returned all beaming smiles and the closing ceremony begun. Dave Court had checked out Alex Daniels, did a Group B Base and Line check for Ben Pettitt and a Group B initial for Andy Kaye. I managed the same sort of thing but the star of the show was Mike Gunston who had amazingly got at least half a dozen PUTs through their tether training and, providing the wind dropped a bit, was set to do a few more in the afternoon. Big thanks were made to the organisers and helpers and Barry C and I headed for a spicy burger which didn’t disappoint.
To avoid getting lost in the intricacies of Bedford we decided to go home via Northampton and pay a visit to a friend of ours who has a lakeside palace on Billing Aquadrome where we enjoyed the warm afternoon sun and a couple of beers and automatic fishing.
As always The Grass Roots Meet had turned up trumps. A huge thanks to Tim Wilkinson and his family for all their hard work and for providing such an inspiring venue, Rob Cross for his boundless enthusiasm for the event and Peter Gray for generally sorting everyone out. This year special thanks have to go to Barry Newman whose Met forecasts were to everyone’s taste and was always there when we landed! If you have never been to the Grass Roots then I can’t recommend it enough. Roll on 2012.
As a postscript, my neighbour, who is a fount of knowledge on airfields, told me that during the World War II the US Airforce set up Riseley Camp, a base for filling and storing bombs for the surrounding airfields. This was between Riseley and Melchbourne House and was served by the road that now takes you up to Sackville Lodge which is actually the southern drive to Melchbourne House, hence the grand gatehouse entrance. This probably explains the existence of some very military looking huts, roads and concrete bases dotted about the immediate area which are clearly visible as you float out. Rather forebodingly, Coppice Wood, which most flew over was a dump for mustard gas canisters. There was a scandal in the late nineties when it was revealed that the clean up of the woods in 1988 was not entirely successful! So next year we’ll have to have a good potter round.

"Grass Roots 2011":

It was with great excitement that after the Grass Roots meets of the previous three years we started planning for this year's event. 'Team Sackville' starts planning the event as soon as the previous one has ended.More... Although the format of the event is the same each year, the reality of how each event pans out is always slightly different. Grass Roots is partly about going back to basics, with lots of balloon teams gathering for a big flyout without all the pressures of large commercial meets.

It has now become a well established event and we have found our home at Sackville Lodge airfield near Bedford. Tim Wilkinson and his family host the event and go to great lengths to ensure everyone is looked after and has a good time. The event is held in late summer so that there are plenty of landing opportunities in the cut fields.
Unlike most meets, part of our philosophy is that we will 'roll' the event so that if the weather is wholly unsuitable on the initial planned weekend we will roll it until we have a weekend where flying slots are available. This is possible through the flexibility that Tim has developed with local suppliers. He also allows everyone to camp on site so there is a very communal spirit and participants don't have to splash out on expensive accommodation. We invite local farmers to fly from the event in an effort to strengthen our relationship with the local farming community. Thanks to this age of email we provide all balloonists on our mailing list with 48 hours notice as to whether the event is on or not.

Planning includes looking at the challenges we had at previous events and how we can make it better next time. There is lots to sort out including catering, gas, camping, airfield layout, toilets, showers, bar, liaising with CAA and neighbouring airfields, marquee from the NFU, grant from the BBAC, pilot emailing and registration, met forecast, risk assessments, liaising with emergency services and of course what happens if the weather makes all the plans go wrong. All of this is done with a small team of Tim, Peter Gray, Mark Stelling and myself. We are grateful to Barry Newman who acted as this year's safety officer.

This year we once again approached the BBAC for a grant of £1000 to help us with the costs of running the event. This involves making a presentation to the Main Committee at the May meeting in Stratford. Other parties who are also making a grant request make their pitches. Each pitch is typically followed by an interrogation (questions) from the Committee which we all try to respond to appropriately, after which we are asked to leave the meeting whilst the Committee discusses the merits and deservedness of each plea. On re-entering the meeting I was told that our grant request would be met in full which was clearly a great outcome for us. Once again through these pages Team Sackville thanks the BBAC for its continued support.

The continued support of the NFU should not go unmentioned. They provide the use of a marquee free of charge. All they ask is for two day’s notice and they bring the marquee to Sackville and erect it. With regard to gas, last year's winter pushed up the price to 60p on the basic price. After many phone calls from Tim, BP stepped in and would supply a tanker to fill on the Saturday of the meet, plus they would supply up to five checkouts with their gas to a maximum of 100 litres each. Tim purchased an extra 4000 litre tank and another 2000 litre tank with meters - gas sorted!

This year’s summer weather was not brilliant. Many events were hit by bad weather. As our first weekend of 9-11 September approached we started to get both restless and excited. We were aware that nearly 90 balloon teams had expressed their intention to come to Sackville. As we monitored the weather we had a very easy call. On the other side of the Atlantic the hurricane season had been in full swing and the remnants of these hurricanes were hitting the UK thanks to the position of the jetstream. So with perfect timing the ex-hurricane Katia swept across the UK. The winds were not hurricane force but the forecast winds were strong enough to pretty much guarantee that no balloons would fly, so we easily decided to postpone the event.
It’s always easy when it’s clear that the weather is going to be truly awful, but the most agonising decisions are when it looks marginal – do we, don’t we? Many attendees have stated that they would come anyway regardless of the weather because they like the social element, but we really want the event to include flying balloons.

We also postponed the following weekend due to another forecast of poor conditions. The third weekend was not possible due to Tim having to work in Ireland. Eventually we opted for the first weekend in October as a huge blocking high was forecast over eastern Europe creating light winds over England. We also experienced a brief ‘Indian summer’ with temperatures hitting the high-twenties Celsius.
The only downside to postponing is that we lose some of the original attendees and there are fewer fields in which to land. However there were still over fifty balloon teams in attendance. On the Friday afternoon slot Rob Bayly kindly gave me a ride in his balloon. During the course of the weekend the wind speed and direction in the first three slots landed us in the same area and some very patient farmers kept good humour. It is fairly rare that the wind speed and direction remain constant at a balloon meet over three consecutive slots, but on the fourth slot we went on a more southerly track.

We always encourage PUTs and training at Sackville. This year was no exception. There were many PUT flights. In previous years there has always been a check out flight at the event. This year was much better with the following achieved:

Adam Griffiths did recommendation (with Andy Kaye), GFT (Chris Dunkley) and solo (Ian Chadwick).
Alex Daniels did recommendation (Jon Dyer) GFT (Dave Court) solo (Jon).
Ben Pettitt and Dave Court did their Group B Certificate of Test and Base / Line Check, with examiners Dave Court and Chris respectively.
Gavin Chadwick and Andy Kaye did their Group B initial Type Rating with Chris and Dave respectively.

Congratulations to all of you.

We are aware that the following PUT flights occurred:
Steve Cook – two flights, one with Mike Gunston.
Matthew Jemmett with Ian Warrington.
Caroline Jemmett with Rob Jemmett.
Gareth Bufton with John Sproat.
Alex Court with John Russon.
Robert Lovell with Barry Newman and Martin Lovell.
Stephen O'Boyle with Sue Kidd and Ed Lubbock.
Jonathan Walton instructor flight with Mike Gunston.

Mike Gunston kindly ran tether school which enabled a number of PUTs to have this element of their training signed off.

Geoffrey Walton did exceptionally well by flying a farmer's wife and two children on the Friday afternoon, then another farmer and two children on Saturday morning, followed by yet another farmer and wife on the Saturday afternoon, this time landing on his farm!

Throughout the weekend the social hub of the meet was the NFU marquee, with Tim, wife Angie and family continually cooking great food for everyone. The hog roast made its customary appearance.

After flying on the Sunday morning we held the prize-giving. Adam and Alex were recognised for their checkouts. Chris Dunkley was also given a bottle of whiskey in recognition of his ongoing support and all the recent work he had done in the non-lifing legislation of balloon tanks. Mike Gunston received a prize for running another tether school and Angie and the girls were recognised for all their hard work.

So what did all this work achieve? Fifty-plus balloons turned up to accomplish approximately 150 flights. Various checkouts were done and we had a successful tether school. There were no landowner issues of note, and probably, most importantly of all, we very much hope that everyone had a great time. As the saying goes you only get out of it what you put in. Everyone put a lot into Grass Roots, and we believe everyone got a lot out of it. As far as Team Sackville is concerned seeing so many enjoying themselves is a great reward in itself.

We thank everyone for coming – without you there would be no event. We also thank everyone that made it possible.

We look forward to Grass Roots 2012 which is scheduled for 7-9 September – put it in your diaries!

"How Grass Roots Came About"