Christmas Mini-Quiz
Q1: What does everyone know about the behaviour of London buses?
Q2: What do Newsletter articles have in common with London buses?
As the deadline passed for this issue and my 'in' tray remained empty, I had reconciled myself to producing another slimmed down, twenty page edition. So I sat down and added up what I had - and it looked more like sixteen! Then along came three excellent articles and all of a sudden I was agonising over what to leave out. Eventually though, the dust was blown off the editorial shoehorn, and so, with due thanks to all authors, I am delighted to bring you Sloping Off, restored once again to full 24 page health.
No fewer than four models are featured in this issue. Two contrasting ARTFs are the sleek and slippery Blade from ModellHaus, reviewed by Neil Longman, and the weird and whacky Wingo, which is given its water wings by new contributor, Cyril Heath. Very much at the BIY (Built It Yourself) end of the spectrum is Brian Richards' home brewed slow flyer which was pictured in our 'Indoor Experience' article back in March. This model flew so well that Brian got totally overwhelmed by "How did you..." questions and eventually drew up a plan. Since then, these models have been breeding rapidly - Mervyn Watson's article will tell you why. Finally, Chairman Clive gives an update on his flying experiences with the Lady Bug, featured in our last edition.
Technically, there is even a fifth model putting in an appearance: some of you may remember James Labouchere coming to give a talk to the club a year or two back. This was by way of a thankyou for the club's help with flying and filming his quarter scale model of a novel flying boat he was working on. James has now received funding for the building of a full size prototype, and was kind enough to mention us in the associated publicity.
Squeezed in between all these models, you will find a Caption competition featuring yet another fine cartoon by Phil Lockwood (you have even got a double portion of him this time), some words of wisdom from Don Stackhouse on ground looping and gyros, a report on our Rose Bowl thermal competition by Gordon Coy, the usual updated information on Club nights, Competitions and Contacts, an AGM report by yours truly and, last but of course always first, Clive's introductory column. Once again, my thanks to all of them - and Season's Greetings to all of you.