The May newsletter is here…

You can access the newsletter from this post or from the email the majority of our members will receive by the 18th May 2022

If you haven’t told us your email address or if it has changed… to avoid missing out send your updated email details to membership@westwoldsu3a.org.

If you would like to make comment on this newsletter or submit an article for the next issue then please send details to newsletter@westwoldsu3a.org by Friday 27th May 2022.

We would really like to hear from you now that u3a events are beginning to take off again

We would like to show you what the stamps that are donated and collected by Eunice Hughes are used for by the Leprosy Mission and what it did for a small child in another country. keep donating any stamps to Eunice who passes them on to the charity.

To see the letter form the Leprosy Mission click here

Here are the photos of the month for our April themes of Spring ( Mary Orphanoudakis), Lens Flare ( Steve McCarthy) and Best Photo ( Angela Wilson). For further photos taken by our group go to our challenge page https://westwoldsu3a.org/wp-admin/post.php?post=8458&action=edit

Do you read the Third Age Matters magazine?

Those eagle eyes among you will be well aware that times are getting tougher, and of course our u3a is no exception.  Your committee have spent some considerable time thinking how we might save money rather than put up the fees, and one of our largest expenses is the cost of our National magazine which is £3.35 per annum per household to cover the postage on five issues.  This is called Third Age Matters (TAM). 

We are aware that these are not widely read by our members, though there are some who enjoy receiving and reading them.  Other local u3a’s charge their members extra to receive TAM.  We don’t want to go down that road at this time but instead we have decided to ask you to let me know if you want to continue to receive this.  Therefore will you please let me know by the end of July if you want to continue to receive the magazine.  If I don’t hear from you, I will assume you do not want TAM.

Jane Guy, Membership Secretary

Click here to see the May 2022 Newsletter for the Spanish Group

The u3a have arranged with Barclays Digital Team to run a Digital Security Workshop

on Wednesday May 11th at 10am to 11.30am.

To take part, click    REGISTER HERE  which takes you to the booking site called Eventbrite.

Once registered you will receive an email confirmation and later a link to join the presentation.

This may suit those members who could not make the Lincs Police Cyber Team event earlier this month.

The April newsletter is here…

You can access the newsletter from this post or from the email the majority of our members will receive by the 18th April 2022

If you haven’t told us your email address or if it has changed… to avoid missing out send your updated email details to membership@westwoldsu3a.org.

If you would like to make comment on this newsletter or submit an article for the next issue then please send details to newsletter@westwoldsu3a.org by Friday 6th May 2022.

We would really like to hear from you now that u3a events are beginning to take off again

A review by Nadia Dawson of a presentation given by Dr Julian Onions entitled “Galaxies – one gigayear at a time”.

I was somewhat perturbed when I read the title of this month’s talk as I knew absolutely nothing about galaxies and had no idea what a gigayear was. With that in mind, I decided I must not prejudge just because I hated physics and chemistry with a passion at school, so I would give our speaker, Dr Julian Onions a chance. I really wouldn’t have been surprised if Julian had stood in front of us in a ‘white coat’, but then I remembered that the TV presenter Professor Brian Cox had actually made basic astronomy quite palatable for the likes of me so, I was prepared to sit back and listen and maybe learn as Julian began his talk. 

Like Professor Cox, Julian also had an easy manner and explained that as an astrophysicist based at Nottingham University, he studied objects in the universe including galaxies and stars in order to understand what they are made of, their features, histories and how they were formed. He then went on to explain that a gigayear equals a billion years and a galaxy is a collection of gas, dust and billions of stars and their solar systems all held together by gravity and, just so you know, the word billion regularly slipped off Julian’s tongue in the course of his presentation.

The collection of stars we see when we look up at the sky at night is known as the Milky Way, and it was first identified by William Herschel in 1785 using his own home-made telescope. Julian went on to explain that a galaxy is mostly empty space which is why it is so difficult to explore because it is estimated that it would take 100,000 years to get from one side of our galaxy to the other and that there are more than 100 billion (there’s that word again!) galaxies in the universe.

In 1924, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble revolutionised astronomy when he announced he had evidence that the Milky Way galaxy was just one of many galaxies in an ever-expanding universe. Through his 100inch telescope he saw stars similar to the ones in our galaxy but they were like fuzzy blobs in the night sky. From this, he deduced that other galaxies extended around us in space for many billions (there it is again!) of light years. He did a lot of research and eventually categorised what he saw into four groups according to their shape which he named spirals, ellipticals, lenticulars and irregular galaxies.

Julian confirmed that galaxies are continually making stars with on average, one new star being born every year in the Milky Way. The colour of every star relates to its surface temperature so, the coolest stars in the sky glow red but, as surface temperatures rise, the colours change to orange then yellow with the hottest stars glowing a dark blue. At this point my eyes did start to glaze over a bit as my brain just isn’t equipped to handle these enormous figures and I really can’t imagine seeing red and blue stars in my night sky?? Nevertheless, both Julian and I persevered, and I was extremely surprised when he said that he doesn’t spend all his time looking through a telescope but loading models of the universe onto a computer in order to see invisible stuff called dark matter and dark energy. From the simulations produced by the computer, it is possible to make predictions about their behaviour but we’re limited by the speed of light as the universe began 13.8 billion (there it is again!) years ago.

Whilst I’m still trying to ‘take in’ all this information, Julian moves on to discuss quasars which were only discovered in 1963. A quasar is always found near a supermassive black hole and every galaxy, including ours, has a black hole at its centre. Anything that falls into a black hole disappears forever, but nobody actually knows why so not only are there still many, many unanswered questions for today’s and tomorrow’s astrophysicists to get their teeth into, but there are also new space telescopes being built to try and help answer these questions too. In the meantime, thanks to Julian, I am definitely now more aware of what else is ‘up there’ when I look at those twinkling stars in a clear black sky.

Here are the photos that we decided between the group was the best photos from the two themes of ‘Umbrellas’ and ‘Macro Photography’, and from the best photos submitted for this month. For all of the photos produced by the group this month look at the Challenges page.

At this month’s meeting, we were treated to a very informative and droll presentation by Squadron Leader Mark Sugden on the history of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

Mark gave us a potted version of his twenty odd year RAF career as a pilot flying Tornados, Hawks and Typhoons which has culminated in his appointment as one of the two full time pilots flying the Spitfires and Hurricanes for the BBMF. He then went on to give us the background and history of The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight as we know it today.

Not surprisingly, the idea to form an historic national collection of flyable WW2 aircraft was initially conceived in the 1950s. It was named The Historic Aircraft Flight and consisted of one Hurricane and three Spitfires, all of which were located at RAF Biggin Hill however, by the 1960s when it moved to RAF Coltishall, it had become known as The Battle of Britain Flight. Whilst there, the flight became an established unit with dedicated manpower, and in 1973 when the Lancaster joined the flight, it was renamed again as The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

In 1976, restricted hangar space forced the BBMF to move to its current base at RAF Coningsby however, since then, it has acquired several more aircraft which now total twelve in all. The groundcrew consists of 37 engineering tradesmen, all of whom have primary duties in the Royal Air Force but do this voluntarily and serve a nominal three-to-five-year tour of duty; they include navigators, air engineers and air loadmasters and have had to ‘learn on the job’ how to work with these elderly and very precious aircraft.

The old fighter aircraft (Spitfires and Hurricanes) are only flown by modern RAF fighter pilots whereas the Dakota and Lancaster are flown by RAF pilots with a background on heavy, multi-engine aircraft. For the fighter pilots (two of whom permanently serve on the flight) it is like having to learn to fly all over again and so to do this, they have thirty hours of practice training in the ‘modern’ Chipmunks which are most comparable to the ‘old’ aircraft in flying style as they are tail-wheeled. They then progress onto a Harvard which is loaned to the BBMF by the Dutch Airforce and by then, these modern-day fighter pilots are ready to fly these wonderful bygone fighter planes.

During the winter season (October to March) the majority of the Flight’s aircraft are kept on the ground for extensive winter maintenance to ensure their long-term preservation however, every eight years, one plane is completely dismantled and serviced. There are around 10,000 components in a Merlin engine – roughly 9,000 can still be purchased, but the rest are specifically made or reconditioned to get them back to airworthiness standard using archived instructions written in the 1940s. Whilst the aircraft structure is not difficult to replace, the engine parts are, so the BBMF planes can no longer be called authentic; for those you would need to go to Hendon where you can see the ‘real thing’ but, because they are not airworthy, they are on static display only

The BBMF display season starts in May and continues till September with all the aircraft flying regularly. It is the norm for the aircraft to attend around 1,000 events during that time with an estimated audience of between 7 and 8 million people; each sortie takes in about twelve events so needless to say, this is a huge endeavour for 80-year-old planes as they only have a finite number of hours they can fly. As a consequence, routine servicing and rectification work takes place regularly in the Flight’s hangar.

Those who serve with the Flight feel extremely privileged to work with and fly the BBMF collection of historic aircraft and their motto of “Lest we forget” not only reflects their mission, but also honours the thousands of men and women who gave their lives for their country in the pursuit of freedom.