Saturday 30th July 2016 will see the seconding running of ‘The Big Pull’ where teams will race against the clock pulling an iconic WW2 Harvard Warbird Aircraft. This great spectacle will be part of the Blackbushe Air Day, which takes place on the same day.
Saturday 30th July 2016 will see the seconding running of ‘The Big Pull’ where teams will race against the clock pulling an iconic WW2 Harvard Warbird Aircraft. This great spectacle will be part of the Blackbushe Air Day, which takes place on the same day.
The event originally took place in 2012 at Goodwood racing circuit in order to raise funds for Aerobility as part of Prospects ATCOs’ Branch and the National Air Traffic Services challenge to do something ‘Big’ for the charity. Teams from across NATS all competed on the day each pulling the Harvard down the finishing straight. Air Traffic Controllers from the London Terminal Control Centre at Swanwick were eventually crowned as the victors by posting the quickest time.
As a result of doing something ‘Big’, NATS staffed managed to raise £150,000 – which is much higher than the original target of raising sufficient funds to purchase the Tecnam aircraft for the charity.
2016 sees the return of the Big Pull, this time hosted at Aerobility’s HQ Blackbushe Airport, and as part of the family friendly and open to the public Blackbushe Air Day.
This year the event has an added element, in addition to the NATS teams and of course the defending champions, other corporate teams and groups are invited take part and for the first time Big Pull 2016 will see a disabled team take part.
Each team will be raising money for Aerobility through the website:
https://mydonate.bt.com/events/bigpull
Here teams can create their own team fundraising page. Entries are limited to just 12 teams, with the recommended team size consisting of seven aircraft pullers. The distance to pull between the start and finish line is 100m. Friends, family and colleagues are of course welcome to cheer you on and they will enjoy the diverse airfield activities going on during the day.
There will be two teams of disabled ‘pullers’ eneterned into the competition. The exact make-up of each team is yet to be decided, but is likely to be made up of a mixture of disabilities, in an attempt to ‘level the playing field’ it has been suggested that all participants will be asked to compete in wheelchairs.
If you are up to the challenge, please register you interest with Brian Catchpoole, Aerobility Operations Manager (Email brian@aerobility.com Tel 0303 303 1230).
