Presidents update August 2026

Your RAA Committee held a routine meeting on 20 Aug 26 to discuss matters various and I wanted to give you a quick update.

Clearly, 2026 has been a challenging year so far, in that whilst we managed to get a good-sized party to RAF Waddington in early February to spend a day with the Team, poor weather precluded any flying activity and our attempts to hold a reunion at RIAT were thwarted by the cancellation of the Air Show in toto, due to US Air Force operational requirements.  We did manage to offer an event at the RAF Cosford Air Show but it was attended by only a very small handful from the Association. Having laid on an event at Cleethorpes to coincide with Armed Forces Day celebrations during 2024 and 2025, dwindling interest/ numbers have led us to the conclusion that the membership prefers a different type of get-together so we won’t be seeking to replicate that in the future.

So, looking forward to the remainder of this year and into 2027:

Beercalls – we have forthcoming beercalls to look forward to – RAA (North) at the Lion & Snake in Lincoln on Saturday 3 October 26 and, RAA (South) in Cirencester on Saturday 24 October 26, with further details / reminders to be issued shortly by email and on the RAA Facebook page.

RAF Cosford Airshow – 13 June 27 – we will be looking to arrange a RAA get-together for this event next year.  Hopefully we can do so with plenty of notice to maximise attendance.

RIAT – RAF Fairford – 16 July 27 – on the assumption that RIAT goes ahead next year (and I have no reason to suspect that it won’t) we will attempt to hold a RAA event there, based on our 2024 and 2025 meet-ups.

RAFAT Corporate Day Visit – subject to the agreement of OC RAFAT, of course, we will seek to hold a winter training season / Corporate Day-style visit to RAF Waddington; we’ll hope for better weather this time round…

And now, to finish, a very important matter and a call for your help; our Secretary, Ginge Paige, is regrettably having to give up the role of Sec. Ginge has a recently been diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition which means his ability to use IT screens is becoming very limited. Whilst he will remain an active member of the RAA for as long as possible, Ginge will be a huge loss to the committee. I want to go on record here in sincerely thanking Ginge for his tremendous work over the past couple of years.  So we are looking for a new Secretary to take over from Ginge in, roughly, a ‘by the end of this year’ timeframe.  As you can imagine, a very thorough and professional handover will be given! We are also looking at redistributing a couple of the Sec’s roles and responsibilities to other members of the committee to simplify the role a little.  

Your Association Needs You!

Anyone who is interested, please contact either me or Ginge.

With kind regards,

Mark Northover

RAA President