About – Team MiniAirshow

With Thanks To

Dom Robinson, Jessica Carr (Hidden Valley Flying Park)• Fraser Munro, Andrew Hyams, Clinton Roberts, Fraser Steen (Core Orga)• Jack Nash, Tony Marchant, Adam Juniper, Edd Radcliffe, Jae Chipko, Neil Jones, AndyRC, Wayne Andrews (Lets Drone Out)• Eric Li-Koo, Craig Leong (Rotor-Racing)• Martin Rye (Fossilsstuff)• Neil Cody (iDrone)• Cem Kucuk (Drone Junkie)• Simon Dale (firstpersonview.co.uk)• Gav Ferry and Dave Powell (Binary Throttle Racing System)• Gail Orenstein (Drone Orenstein)• Lee Schofield (Painless360)• Raj Mongia (AlignTrex)• Michael Orourke (Light Whisperer)• Fab Calcioli (RadioC)• Chris Olah (HaloRC)• Greg Spencer (MenaceRC)• Simon Pow (Airjacker)• Art Faulkner• Lewis Chapman• Clive Easton• Carlos Costa• Brad Smith• Phil Parslow• Lui Evans• David Allen• Jonny Banton• John Reed (KQRC)• Mike Pearson (Popham Airfield)• Chris G (Popham Drone Zone)• Ray Cox, John Greenaway (Popham Aeromodellers)• Mike Donnelly (MWM Warbirds)• Dom Robinson, Jessica Carr (Hidden Valley Flying Park)• Fraser Munro, Andrew Hyams, Clinton Roberts, Fraser Steen (Core Orga)• Jack Nash, Tony Marchant, Adam Juniper, Edd Radcliffe, Jae Chipko, Neil Jones, AndyRC, Wayne Andrews (Lets Drone Out)• Eric Li-Koo, Craig Leong (Rotor-Racing)• Martin Rye (Fossilsstuff)• Neil Cody (iDrone)• Cem Kucuk (Drone Junkie)• Simon Dale (firstpersonview.co.uk)• Gav Ferry and Dave Powell (Binary Throttle Racing System)• Gail Orenstein (Drone Orenstein)• Lee Schofield (Painless360)• Raj Mongia (AlignTrex)• Michael Orourke (Light Whisperer)• Fab Calcioli (RadioC)• Chris Olah (HaloRC)• Greg Spencer (MenaceRC)• Simon Pow (Airjacker)• Art Faulkner• Lewis Chapman• Clive Easton• Carlos Costa• Brad Smith• Phil Parslow• Lui Evans• David Allen• Jonny Banton• John Reed (KQRC)• Mike Pearson (Popham Airfield)• Chris G (Popham Drone Zone)• Ray Cox, John Greenaway (Popham Aeromodellers)• Mike Donnelly (MWM Warbirds)•

History

As part of International Drone Day, groups of drone enthusiasts get together all across the world to fly their drones, and invite friends, neighbours, and the media to showcase drones through fun and safe flying.

▶ MA1

Team Miniairshow was started in 2015 by Dom Robinson, of Hidden Valley fame, to celebrate International Drone Day and show that #dronesaregood. Soon afterwards, Let's Drone Out was conceived to build up talent for commentary at Team MiniAirshow events; starting out on thethursdaynightshow.com before spinning off entirely as its own weekly podcast.

▶ MA2

MiniAirshow 2 succeeded in being the largest International Drone Day event outside of the US, and the innovative Team Racing format commissioned from Rotor Racing was covered by Sky News, Reuters, and the Associated Press.

▶ MA3

Since Hidden Valley started coming up against local authority planning permission issues in late 2016, Team MiniAirshow was led by Andrew ‘Frank’ Hyams, Fraser Munro and Clinton Roberts.

▶ MA4

In 2018, MA4 moved to a new venue: the Drone Zone at Popham Airfield, near Micheldever Station. The team’s success with integrating the local aeromodellers into the event was covered in the 2018 Autumn Special of RCM&E magazine.

▶ MA5

In 2019, MA5 expanded the aeromodelling displays to include the jets and large models of MWM Warbirds, whilst perfecting the team relay format with a combination of an RF survey by MenaceRC, a brand new track-pit layout for Popham’s Drone Zone and a collaboration on Race Control by KQRC and DroneBase – securing the foundation for a bigger event at Popham.

▶ MA6

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 MiniAirshow was moved online – where we still managed to pull together different elements of the drone hobby community to share and enjoy what we could do. For full details, see the MA6 Catchup page.

Since 2021, Popham Airfield has annually held a more traditional R/C show – which the airfield manager has said would not have started if it wasn’t for the previous efforts of Team MiniAirshow.

MA7…?

Team MiniAirshow has survived the loss of venues before, but has always depended on a tight-knit community coming together to reach out to the public and share what we do. After the pandemic, chip shortages, battlefront FPV adoption, international trade disruptions, UK drone regulations, cost-of-living crisis, fuel price hikes, and HD FPV market fragmentation, this community isn’t in the same position. Before we consider hosting another big public event, we are first looking for suitable venues to host meetups and community events to rebuild and plan new ways to engage the public with everything we enjoy.

You can read our constitution here.

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