Held in association with Solway Light Aviation the annual Open Day and Fly-In at Kirkbride Airfield was held on Sunday 26th June. It was hoped a change in month would bring a change in our luck with the weather, having been victim to strong winds, cloud and rain in previous years. We managed to get it half right with the day being blighted only by a stiff 20 knot wind which kept some of the lighter types away. After a somewhat quiet start the day gradually picked up pace and a couple of times it could be seen that 5 aircraft were in the circuit at the same time keeping John Plaskett (event organiser and ATC guru) on his toes. The past couple of years the visiting aircraft have been parked over on the old runway on the far side of the airfield, this year the plan was to park the aircraft on the grass in front of the tower. This seemed to work really well and was popular with the visiting pilots and crowd alike and is something that will be kept for future events. This leads us onto the visiting aircraft which was slightly down due to inclement weather in other parts of the North. It was also unfortunate that the Great North Fly In was taking place at Eshott the same weekend, while we cannot do anything about the weather we are in negotiations with the GNFI organisers so we do not have a clash of dates next year, of course we wish them all the best and hope they had a great weekend too. About 35 aircraft visited the event, while not the biggest turn out we have had it was certainly one of the most varied line ups we have ever seen from a Fournier RF-5B through to a Jet Provost. We also had a couple of displays during the afternoon, the first of these was a pair of MT-03 Gyro's from the based Chris Jones Gyroplanes, flown by Chris Jones and Andrew Lysser. Next up were a pair of Spitfires from the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby. Their MK IX MK356 and MK XIX PM631 made several passes of the airfield before going on their way. Kirkbride stalwart Simon Johnston bought along his Soko Kraguj and gave a really impressive display during the afternoon showing off the unique capabilities of this ex Yugoslav Air Force machine to great effect. We were due to have a display by Neil Mccarthy in the Newcastle based Jet Provost T.3A but due to a Jet Provost T5A XW325 having burst a tyre on landing this had to be cancelled. Overall a great day was had and a sizeable crowd visited the airfield and most importantly the Great North Air Ambulance will have a nice cheque with them shortly.