‘It’s the highest number we’ve seen for a number of years,’ said chairman David Earl.
He was particularly pleased to think on the wider economic benefit such a well-attended event would bring to the island.
‘It’s important from an economic perspective. With each person who comes, they book rooms, they’ll go out. The local hostelries and hotels benefit very much.’
Key in enabling the success of this years fly-in, which ran from Friday evening through to Sunday, was the clearing of the weather.
‘Thursday’s weather was diabolical. I was very carefully watching the weather forecast and it said it would pass by Friday lunchtime, and then it actually did. The visibility improved dramatically and all the aircraft scheduled to land on Friday managed to.’
With fine weather over the weekend, guests were able to take advantage of events organised including island tours, clay pigeon shooting, a social at Kiln Farm with smash burgers and Alderney milk milkshakes, and the rare opportunity to visit the airport’s air traffic control towers. The dinner saw its usual set of awards given out, including best home-built plane, youngest and oldest pilots, and also the longest distance flown, which went this year to Stefan Auer who flew in to Alderney from Perpignan.
The dinner’s raffle was also a success, raising £655, 50% of which will go to support Channel Islands Air Search.
‘The whole weekend went very smoothly,’ said Mr Earl. ‘Everyone I spoke to thought it was fabulous. They all said what a wonderful time they’d had and how well organised it all was. It went brilliantly.’
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