OldtimerTopics I
spent five weeks in London this sum- mer visiting our new grandchild. Fly- ing and writing about old time models is fun, but the grandfather gig has it all
beat hollow.
I’ve been visiting England and English modelers off and on for 30 years now. Other American modelers have been on some of those trips and we’ve always been treated well. There are two active SAM Chapters in England. SAM 35 focuses a bit more on radio control models, while SAM 1066 focuses on freeflight.
Both clubs have active websites and newsletters or magazines. If you’re planning a jaunt to England, you might check their websites, along with the website of the British Model Flying Association to see what’s on by way of model airplane activity. If your stay in England will be limited to a
few days in London, you should try to visit the RAF Museum in Hendon—on the north side of London, but easily reachable by pub- lic transit. It’s free and has airplanes from WW I to the era of Britain’s nuclear “V Bombers”.
The Science Museum near the South Kensington tube station has a hall devoted to things aeronautical. There are full sized aircraft, an interesting collection of aero en- gines, and exhibits containing models of British aircraft over the years. If “her in- doors” is bored to tears by airplanes, the Vic- toria & Albert Museum is just across the street.
If you rent a car and can get out in the countryside, I’d also recommend the Shut- tleworth Collection at Old Warden (mainly pre WW II aircraft) and the museum at Dux- ford. Both museums have occasional flying days. Old Warden has a grass airfield, and PHOTO: BILL COPELAND
PHOTO: BILL SCHMIDT
Bill Schmidt, out in Kansas, always builds a tasty looking model and this Alert, scaled to 42 inches for a Bantam spark ignition engine is no exception. The full sized Alert is typicaly flown with a Forster .29 or thereabouts in Southern California.
on several weekends in the summer, there’ll be organized model flying days as well. Now what does my picture of an early RTF model airplane have to do with all of this? I took the picture of T.W.K. Clarke’s 1907 RTF single pusher model in the Science Mu- seum on this trip. Clarke ran an “aeronauti- cal company” that made airplane engines and propellers.
The company also made model airplanes and man carrying gliders of the Chanute type (pilot inside, runs like mad and then glides down a hill). One of Clarke’s man car- rying gliders made in 1910 is on display in
the RAF museum. I’ve seen a 1917 adver- tisement from Clarke’s company listing more than twenty ready to fly models. Clarke was trained as an engineer, and worked on building railroads before turning to matters aeronautical. He later became a Scientific Fellow in the RAF establishment at Farnborough. Now was this 1907 single pusher the world’s first RTF model air- plane? Perhaps it was. But it certainly was not the first model airplane as we know it. In 1891 Chuhachi Ninomiya of Japan de- signed and flew a 24-inch wing span single pusher rubber powered airplane called The
by mike myers You can reach Mike Myersat 911 Kilmary Lane, Glendale, CA 91207, or via e-mail at
mikemyersgln@charter.net
PHOTOGRAPHY: MIKE MYERS
Bill Copeland gets ready to time a SAM 21 member’s Speed 400 flight at this spring’s contest. The model (at left) is a scaled Cleveland Viking. Peter Michel, of England (above), holds the original Ted Evan’s 1948 JaguarWakefield.
58 NOVEMBER 2013
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