The Aeromodelling Page

This is a collection of images of some of the flying machines which I have built myself, and flown. Note that these pictures were mostly taken before flying them. As you will see from one of the pictures, this is usually a shrewd move <g>. 

If you are interested in finding out more about aeromodelling, check out the BMFA - British Model Flying Association. 

The first plane anyone should get is a "trainer". This is typically a high-wing aircraft (wings on top of fuselage) with positive dihedral (the wing tips are higher than the centre). The wing area is fairly large for the weight of the model, so it can stay in the air at low speeds. The kits are often "ARTF" (almost ready to fly), which is usually a laughable euphemism for "it'll take weeks rather than months to build". Still, they are normally quicker than starting from scratch. Mostly they come with foam wings which you have to join, and a ready-built fuselage, and some are even ready-covered with plastic film so there's not much decorating to do. The tricky bits are actually getting the engine and radio gear installed securely and operating correctly. Now take your picture! 

And there it is. Amazingly it still looked like that a year later. And then it... erm... didn't.

Oh well, if you're going to prang it, prang it good, eh? And don't forget to blame somebody else for it. I admit to forgetting to shut the throttle off before it hit the deck vertically. But then, it would have been flying a whole lot better if some other clot hadn't just sliced one of the wings off with his propellor in mid-air. That's why there's only one wing. The clump of mud in the foreground is actually the engine (complete with dangling fuel tank just above it), and that's what happens when you forget to shut off the throttle! Whoever said there's no such thing as bad experience, I've got this nice bucket of liquid nitrogen I'd like to pour into his trousers...

While I was making a new power model <g>, a friend gave me a glider to play with. This was a superb little model called a Mijet, and to his immense annoyance I flew it and beat him in most of the competitions we entered.

It was getting colder, and wetter, and windier. No doubt about it, Winter was coming. The Mijet would get broken in high winds. It was time to build something more robust. Enter the "Thing". This little beastie has elevons - only two moving surfaces which double up as elevators and ailerons. Designed as a flying wing, it's virtually indestructible. I flew it in winds measuring up to 70mph (the wind gets scooped up when you fly off a slope) which was hard enough to stand up in, never mind fly! And I flew it in the snow. At which point I realised this was getting very silly indeed, and went back to power flying. 

Except the next model was even sillier. This is a one-sixth scale model of a Fokker DR1, favourite mount of Baron von Richtoven, the "Red Baron". Decked out in modelling canvas and spray-painted, complete with appropriate decals, this plane was a serious looker. Unfortunately it was violently unstable at low speeds, and so the landings were usually more sort of "arrivals" than anything else. And every time the wings snapped, I had to mend THREE of the buggers! Then some wise-guy noted that it looked like I was flying a piece of venetian blind, and suddenly the magic was gone. I found it a nice home to go to.

Here are a couple of gliders (slope soarers) I built. Almost identical in design, the "Phase 6" comes in a Sport version with semi-symmetrical wing section, and a Professional version with fully symmetrical wing section. Don't ask me which one is which, it was too long ago!

And a completely loopy device, the "Disco" I think it was called. Basically a completely non-aerodynamic flat slab of foam for a "wing", with another lump for the tail. The wing looked so much like an overgrown £1 coin that I stencilled "DECUS ET TUTAMEN" on the edge. Few people got the gag <sigh>. But then, I suppose it wasn't really very ornamental, and frankly not very safe either. Anyway, it could hover if flown at some ludicrous angle of attack like about 45 degrees, and then land vertically but not always very tidily I have to admit. Ok, more often than not, it landed upside down with a thump. But at least it was resilient! 

OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF...

I saw this unbelievable monster at a display some years ago. Just look at the guy in the picture for scale. This is a LARGE model. Reckon on several thousand hours of building time to get some idea of the effort that goes into these things. And two seconds to reduce it to matchsticks. C'est la vie...!

And finally, I snagged this still-shot from a video of a display also many years ago. Yeah, it really IS a model of a jumbo jet with a piggy-back shuttle on top. When a decent height has been reached, the pilot flicks a release switch on his transmitter, and the shuttle separates. Naturally it's a touch tricky flying two separate aircraft on one transmitter <g>, so another guy is ready to fly the shuttle back to earth. True to the real thing, the shuttle flew like a brick doesn't, and it was quite amusing watching the poor chap try and get it down in one piece, remembering that it had no engine!