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We at KMAC used to hire a few caravans over at the adjacent Cheverton Copse Holiday Park where pilots and club members would then do a big shop at Morrisons and congregate for a Saturday night bash. For those three days in the Bush-Air classroom, I wasn’t going to be alone. My wingmen would be Keith Watts, from Tennessee, a professional race car driver instructor who owns a Cessna 172 – and Kirk Robertson, a dentist from Flagstaff, Arizona, who brought his 182 to Kidwell. You have the option to use your own aircraft for training or choose between the 172 or 170B available from Bush-Air. And then, there’s Druskininkai, a bumpy strip in the spa town where half of Eastern Europe ‘takes the waters’. Druskininkai sits close to Belarus, and as you tune into Flight Information, you share the frequency with Belarusian MIG pilots on their training sorties. People voluntarily get together for a spring clean of everything in sight. At our airfield, we all swept, washed and painted. We cut the grass. We re-covered the runway markers with new tin stripes. We got rid of old paperwork, magazines and dead batteries. We threw away tea and coffee which had gone off over the winter. We gave a proper burial to a mummified mouse we found in the shed. With the airfield ‘talka-ed’ and the Auster fixed, I was all set to go flying again.

Right in the middle of the country sits Kaunas, another medieval town, with winding narrow streets, great food, and talented buskers. It has two airfields: Kaunas International (landing fee: €3) and Kaunas Darius and Girenas, a GA field with more than 1,000m of tarmac. W e run the weirdest syndicate arrangement possible. Our Ikea-coloured Auster Arrow, which was born in Lincolnshire in 1946 and now lives in Lithuania, has three co-owners, but I’m the only one who’s ever seen it in the flesh, let alone flown it. Covid has kept the other two co-owners abroad. For a year now, they’ve only been getting photos of the aeroplane – and invoices for their share of the fees – on our chat group. The whole country only has four bits of controlled airspace. If you want to land at the capital’s international airport, you simply submit a flight plan and go. Touch-and-goes are free, and a landing costs less than €10. Unfortunately not,” says Rob, shaking his head. “Really not. At least not in the short term. We are not allowed to take passengers on these planes. There would be trouble. You would first have to apply for a special permit – and then wait a long time.” We also take a look at the apartments for pilots and mechanics that Everts makes available if required. “If you are unhappy with your accommodation, you can also stay here with us,” the 61-year-old suggests.

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That’s the essence of Spamfield really. Camaraderie forged from a shared passion – there really is no other fly-in event that comes close”

He directs us to create a grid with one column for the different flaps position, one for the stall warning activation, and a final one for the actual airspeed, and says, “today, we are going to be test pilots.” In September 2020, I was flying in his area following Route 66, he saw one of my posts on social media and generously sent me a message inviting me to visit his home. He had a room and cold beer available! How could I say ‘no’…?

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The following year it was held at Sandown and the ‘modern Spamfield’ (to use Olympic terminology) was born, and I haven’t missed many over the years.

Damn cold here,” agrees another passenger. “It’s 29° below zero,” says our pilot. He means Fahrenheit. The conversion to Celsius doesn’t make it any better: minus 34°. In Fairbanks it was ‘only’ minus 18. Outside the north hangar there are still a number of snowbound and decommissioned aircraft, including a DC-4 and a DC-7. But primarily DC-6. Ask any microlight pilot what the biggest event of the year in the flying calendar is and they will undoubtedly answer Spamfield. It’s the one fly-in of the year that no self-respecting microlight flyer wants to miss. There didn’t seem to be as many flexwings this year, I never counted more than around 25 at any one time. Exodus Aircraft brought its new DeltaJet 500 Stingray, which was fitted with the BMW engine rather than the normal Rotax 912 and there was plenty of interest being shown. Our parts store ,” says Rob. “Everyone always thinks that missing spare parts is a big problem,” says Rob.He got the Auster dismantled and shipped to Lithuania, and then tasked local mechanics to rebuild it, replacing all the wood, and the metal, and the wiring, and, above all, the fabric. When I turned up to look at it, I thought it looked resplendent in yellow and blue. And it was also impossibly cute. I think all vintage aeroplanes are – as they sit on their tailwheels, they look like puppies begging for a biscuit. So where does the name ‘Spamfield’ originate? It all came about because the PFA Rally at Cranfield was cancelled in 2001 due to foot and mouth disease, so some wag came up with the name, and thought it might be a good idea to hold a similar event on the Isle of Wight, but for microlights. It seems that if, after their training, they had the choice between a major airline and Everts Air, they would almost always choose the major airlines. This machine belonged to Hughes. When we bought them, there were still tons of personal belongings on the plane,” says Ragar.

Winds were up to around 15kt straight down the runway. CC set orange cones and racing flags on both sides of the runway to create an imaginary competition line. While the technique was going to be similar to what we have been practising, we would add an extra step this time. It was time to use the flaps differently! T6 Harvard has been incredibly welcoming, and a friendly bunch all very keen to share their experiences and to help other pilots get a taste of what it’s like to fly such an important piece of our aviation heritage.Then, hangarage. The Auster’s home field, Utena, is a bit out of the way, a 90-minute drive from the capital Vilnius. But it only charges €100 a year. That’s right, a hundred euros a year. This decision, at least, was easy.