Welcome to Flying Model Review

Iv always been into model making as far back as I can remember, just after the war my mother use to buy me cardboard cutout models from the local corner shop,animals, model houses,shops,castles I remember as a five year old thinking that one day I would build a model of the whole of London!

In 1956 the family moved to Abbotts Ann near Andover, there was behind the house a unused overgrown 10 acre field, this field was on top of a hill overlooking Andover Aerodrome, at that time being used by Avro Ansen,s,deHavilland Chipmunks, and ATC Kirby Cadet Gliders, many happy hours where spent watching them, then in September of that year I went to the aerodrome for the Battle of Britain aniverary display, and It was there that I met my friend Dave who was already into building model planes.

He was building a Keil Kraft Talon, this was a 32" wingspan control line combat model with full-fuselage and canopy, it was a very nice looking model and powered by a E.D Racer 2.5 diesel, not exactly the right type of model for a raw beginner to control line flying, and Dave had never tried control line before, needless to say he did not manage to fly it, and I later inherited the E.D Racer, I bought the Christmas issue of 'Aero Modeller'  that year and blew my first christmas box from work( all of twelve shillings and six pence) on a Keil Kraft Gypsy kit, and another aeromodeller was born

This is not a picture of my model of the Gypsy, mine was blue fuselage and white wings and tail, .....that was after I found out that adding indian ink to the tissue shrinking water as suggested in the kit did not work, it reacted with the tissue paste making horrible green and yellow streaks where the tissue touched the balsa, the lot was stripped and recovered in light weight modelspan,

1959 saw another move of house, thats the trouble with the life of a farmworker, or it was back then, We moved to Silchester, which was once a Roman city (parts of the walls are still there) but today is a village, which is about mid-way between Reading and Basingstoke, I decieded it would be a good idea to join a model aircraft club, As I had no transport at the time Reading club was out as I could not reach there flying field as it was to far away,on the other hand Basingstoke could be reached by train from the station at the local village a mile and half away, and as it turned out there club hut was a old building on platform 5 of  Basingstoke station, flying was on Basingstoke common for free flight and a local rugby field for control line,

It was great to find others intrested in the same hobby, the members where very friendly and helpfull, I decided to try  my hand at power flying, up untill then all my models had been rubber power or gliders, I purchased a Mills .75 diesel which proved to be a very good choice for a first timer to power flying, I built a Halo from the Keil Kraft kit as my first power model, the Halo was designed as a PAA load contest model and had weighted blocks to represent pilot and cargo, these could be removed for none PAA events, it was a ungainly looking aircraft, but turned out to be one of the best flying models Iv ever built, I took it into Basingstoke and as it was a warm early summer evening we held our weekly friday night  meeting on the common, after a few triming glides and checking the lenght of the Mills .75 run the model was launched on its maiden flight, after a tight 15 second spiral climb the model settled into a large circular glide which lasted for 23 minutes, the model regularly turned in flights of 15-20 minutes or more, and several members got worried that I would enter it for the annual flying competition in the coming August of that year, however as it happened they need not have worried, while flying the model back home in a local farmers field and after the usall pattern flight, the model suddenly took of in a straight line into the neighbouring cornfield, the corn was tall just coming into ear, despite many walks through the corn the model did not come to light, I flew a Roaring 20 biplane from aeromodeller plans service in the competition, and two weeks later they cut the corn, the nose section of the model with the Mills.75 still attached passed through the combine harvester, the engine was dusty with a small nick in the prob, after a wipe over, a drop of fuel and a quick flick it started first time!

After about a year and half with the Basingstoke club we lost our club hut on Basingstoke station , One of the members parents had a smallholding at Dummer where there was a building going spare  that the club could use and also a paddock that could be used for control line flying which at that time was coming to be very popular, This was several miles for Basingstoke and there was no public transport, although I did it several times, the walk first from home and then from Basingstoke to Dummer was just to much, Id met a couple of village lads on my way back and forth to the local station on my way to Basingstoke, both where interested in learning to fly control line and there was a lovely level green on the local common at Silchester,being a old roman city,and us flying combat, we called ourselves the Silchester Gladiators