SLOPING OFF...

...the Newsletter of Christchurch and District Model Flying Club for September 2022

LONGHAM OPEN DAY

Although the Club Open Day was postponed the weather on the morning of 23 July was just fine for Longham and over 20 models were assembled. Brian Jackson takes up the story and sent us his pictures:

Mike’s Supermarine S-4 was a delight, both on the water and in the air, and the twin seaplane (Cava - Ed) looked capable of being flown “whatever the weather”. David’s Junior 60 confused me for a while, it was the unfamiliar shape of the nose/cabin screen and ailerons that had me baffled. Phil put it right as he kindly outlined the features that were pure Junior 60 and the bits that weren’t “quite the same”. Phil’s Seabee had an overdose of reluctance to leave the water, but Peter’s model seemed to be very keen to get back in, after a splendid display of tight turns ending with a whisper light touch of a wingtip on the water. I’m still not sure if it was intentional, or whether the model wasn’t switched on. The speed of the inverted and drifting model was very low, I wouldn’t be surprised if Peter was still waiting downwind somewhere, curbing his urge to plunge in for yet another splashy retrieval. Roly took his Tidewater for a long distance recce, and managed to navigate back to base, where sighs of relief and a display of lowered shoulders greeted its return. David’s Icon-A5 was flown with the usual display of panache, I think David goes to Lake Annecy every year just to keep his panache topped up.

As well as these Club models there were a number of BIMBO visitors. Here’s BIMB Martin Hardy’s Short Solent, from the Ivan Pettigrew plan, on its maiden take-off from water. The model is unusual in that it flew off land first - Martin has put wheels under the hull and each tip float. This does not affect its ability to fly, far from it.

Next we had George Worley of 4-Max who brought his superb Dornier Super Wal, a design by Laddie Miskulasko

Then BIMB Scott Wallis and his Ivan Pettigrew design Consolidated Catalina in Air-Sea Rescue colours

Ttevor flew his Aquabird, another Laddie design as well as his BIMB Short Solent

And finally, I brought my Princess and the Canadian flag. This was presented to the BIMBs by Ivan and Hal on their visit to the UK in 2011 and is signed by the builders and fliers of his marvellous designs