Indoor Flying for the Winter Months

The indoor flying season runs from October to April. There are monthly sessions at various venues across the country. These are the details of the ones closest to Greater Manchester / Stockport.

BMFA-NW Indoor Fly-In held in Rochdale

Try the excellent BMFA-NW indoor flying sessions in Rochdale. Entry is only £3 and you can fly for upto 6 hours, from 11am-5pm. The venue is a very large indoor sports centre.

These events are only held from October to March/April, and only once a month so don't miss out! Check the calendar and map for more details and take a look at these pictures taken at recent fly-ins.

The models flown range from rubber band powered free flight and chuck gliders upto 3D / vertical performance shock flyers. Small scale RC planes are a popular choice and there's no snobbery about the type of model flown. Off the shelf "toy" planes are a common sight, flying alongside hand crafted masterpieces.

The events are fixed wing only, so no helicopters and no i/c, of course (because it's indoors). There's no hard and fast weight limit but the venue is suitable for models upto around 200g AUW, and wingspans upto around 80cm / 32".

More details can be found on the calendar.

St Helens Indoor Fly-In

Another good one is the indoor fly-in in the Sutton Sports and Leisure Centre in St. Helens. Entry is £8-£10, depending on the number of people who turn up.

It's a smaller venue than the Rochdale one, and a shorter session but there's still plenty of room to fly and fewer people attend so it's easy to fly almost continuously. It's a very friendly, relaxed place to fly indoor models. RTF Silverlit flying toys are very popular at this one, and there are a lot of hand made scale models that use the innards from some of them. There are bigger models too, of course. Models up to about 200g should be flyable in that hall, though lighter is better.

Shock flyers aren't allowed, though other small aerobatic models are welcome. APC and glass props are banned, for safety reasons. The GWS / JP orange plastic props are ideal.

Small electric helicopters, of the twin contrarotating rotor variety are allowed, as well as the smaller IR controlled ones. It's very rare to find a venue that allows helicopters indoors, so that's a bonus.

Details of the next sessions are already on the calendar, but check for updates closer to the time.