Brian Cooper

Ordered 4 Kindles from Amazon, and they sent me a Two Ronnie's DVD.

I blame my parents. They bought me a slot-together balsa chuck glider when I was about 4 or 5. I spent hours throwing it around the garden. That would have been in 1958/9. . . It has been downhill all the way since then. . Lol. No end of Sleek Streaks followed. They taught me how to trim an aeroplane to perform to my various desires. Then Kiel Kraft, rubber-powered models from the age of about 7. My grandmother bought be a plastic, control line Aerocobra with a Cox 0.49 when I was 8. But I never got the hang of control line flying. I got dizzy after a couple of circuits and fell over. Radio control was my salvation at the age of 9. Funded by myself (I probably washed every car in the neighbourhood. .lol) my first R/C model was a Mini Super, fitted with RCS single channel radio. There were no flying instructors in those days. . You launched it and started learning....... fast. After teaching myself to fly, a new neighbour moved in. He was Mick Charles. What luck. The rest is history. It is a hobby/pastime which I have pursued since early childhood. . . I just haven't grown out of it yet.

I still have my favourites. . . They are keepers.

British summers. . . These are why package deal, foreign holidays became popular.

The way our weather patterns are changing, summer (lol) might become the time for building new models, while winter becomes the time to go out to fly them.

If nothing else, this thread certainly highlights the sad shortage - or even absence - of local model shops. What a shame.

An Engineer dies and goes to Hell. Dissatisfied with the level of comfort, he starts designing and building improvements. After a while, Hell has air conditioning, flush toilets and escalators…….. The engineer is a pretty popular guy. One day God calls and asks Satan, "So, how's it going down there?" Satan says, "Hey things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next." God is horrified. "What? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake - he should never have gone down there! You know all engineers go to Heaven. Send him up here! " Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff. I'm keeping him." God says, "Send him back up here or I'll sue." "Yeah, right," Satan laughs, "and where are you going to get a Solicitor?" .

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ALWAYS from the pilots box. . Even for maiden flights. The only exception is when doing a hand launch.

I started giving goes to kids when I was still a kid myself -- I was 13 -- and that was over 56 years ago. With the help of few others who are keen to promote our great hobby, we are still doing it. We give demos to get their imaginations ignited. . . We fly fast; we fly low; we do lively 3D aerobatics; we fly under limbo tapes; we fly (streamer cutting) combat; we burst balloons. . . we do just about anything which can create a "WOW.." And the kids love it. They are always keen to have a go on the buddy box -- and we make that fun too -- but fewer and fewer are taking up the hobby. But hey ho... we keep plugging away at it. .

Yes, we have three active youngsters, but fewer juniors are committing to join the hobby. Nowadays they refer instant gratification (video games) rather than having to put in the hours required to master a real-life skill. However, we still have some who are bright enough to keep their noses away from staring at a mobile phone for hour after hour.

I was woken up in the early hours this morning. Could hear the bulimic bloke in the flat above me vomiting, so I banged on the ceiling and shouted, “Oi keep it down.”