Christchurch and District Model Flying Club
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Diary of a Flyer by B Leonard Wise.

Diary of a Flier
by Leonard B Wise

B. Leonard Wise has agreed to help as ground crew to Ken Wood in a competition. They are awaiting the static judging.

Ken carried the F.W.  190 out to the flight line and Karen his girlfriend and I  stood with him and waited. He was worried about a Meteor which was not strictly a Warbird but was allowed. The judges went along the line with their mark sheets and we were told to get ready for the flying.

There were three rounds. The first had a schedule given by the judges the second was free style, but flown as scale and the  third was another schedule but it was given out 15 minutes before the flight. Myj ob  was to be the caller. Because there were six contestants and other people were to fly during the afternoon we were restricted to five minutes per flight. Marks would be given or, deducted according to how close you were to the five minutes.

We set off. I had rehearsed the schedule with Ken and we were  familiar with it. I guess he could have flown it without my help but call I did. We were second and he flew well except when coming out of a spin. He did not come out facing the judges it was a bit off.

The best looking and the best flown was the Meteor, Karen stood behind us with a stopwatch making sure that Ken took exactly five minutes and no more. The wind was about ten miles an hour blowing towards us. Nothing to these planes but it did make them drift towards the judges and the planes were supposed to stay out over the posts which were 100 yards  out.

We watched the rest of them. In my opinion Ken was just about the best. Everyone except the Meteor made small errors. The wind was blowing towards us and Karen kept telling Ken to keep away. Then we came to the free style  we flew sixth this time: the Meteor was third to fly. When the Meteor took off Ken said Here we go with the winning flight. But it was not to  be. As the Meteor took of it seemed to stagger, soon there was what I thought was a glitch .I did not like it. He set out to beat up the runway as part of his  flight. down it came in a shallow dive but he could not quite pull it out and the plane hit the  runway and skidded along it with bits flying off it all the  way. We were all sorry to see that happen, but it did remove what I thought was our biggest rival.

When it was Ken’s turn there was nothing for me to do except admire his flying. I thought he was a bit fast at times, but it was skilful. The Meteor was now out of it and the next best was a Spitfire which of course looked so good in the air, He did all the showing off of the wing shape but did not have quite the control of  Ken .

Ken went through a routine he had perfected at our flying site part of which had resulted in the demise of my Riot.  In am not sure if knife edge flying was something the  real FW 190 could do but Ken did it and did it well. Karen stood behind with her stop watch and called the time near the end. She said start finals and counted him down from 20 seconds. He hit the runway within one second of the five minutes which got  him a point or two.

Is Leonard getting serious at last? Will the French police catch up with him? Has he put the Eiffel Tower incident behind him?

Find out next time!

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