From the archives......

[Chris Easton]

All this talk of the sixties makes me feel really old! I grew up in the fifties, with a succession of Keil Kraft models and Jetex motors that burned up the pocket money horribly. I eventually got an E.D. Bee diesel which powered several control line models. We used to make our own fuel to save the pennies. I bet a chemist wouldn't sell ether to a couple of twelve year olds now, or a hardware shop fill a lemonade bottle with paraffin even if they knew what it was for. I don't remember any of us getting hurt, and we certainly had fun. 

[Slopetrashuk]

People? On the cover? With real models?

Rubbish!

Bring back the electric powered foamy chip trays, that's what I say!

[Mike Rolls]

Home brew fuel - that brongs back a tear to the eye! As racing castor or the like was unobtainable within cycling distance and chemist's castor oil was horribly expensive, we used Castrol XXL for lubricant. Paraffin from the conrner hardware shop was 1d a pint (!) dispensed into a lemonade bottle or the like. Ether from the chemist one, or perhaps two, fluid ounces at a time - can't remember what it cost.

When I graduated to 'big' engines for C/L - Elfin 249 and ED 346 - fuel costs become significant, so I settled on 50:25:25 paraffinil:ether whihc went fine and was cheap. After all, commercial fuel was something like 3/- for 8 fliud ounces - mine was way under half that, probbaly nearer a quarter.

Happy days!

Mike

[001]

As to the amount of air time, in the fifties every day was sunny but it occasionally rained so that the grass was green, but it only ever rained at night (never before 11 o'clock)! Well thats how I remember it.

[Phils]

Chris,

I remember Jetex, we used to put them in smal plastic(?) boats. 10 second burn time and 45 minutes waiting to get it back. cor, parafin, amyl nitrate all good stuff. Yeah local chemist was the place to go for our 'specialist' bit. Nothing to do with models but even used to be able to buy 'magnesium strip' which burned really really well and was nice and bright!

Cold starting, cut fingers where the prop kicked, the smell of the ether on my diesels ah, is heaven like that?

AND what about Castrol R40, now there's a smell!

Phil. 

[DH1950]

Mixing own fuel. Oh, yes! Cost was the primary thing behind it. Paraffin was'free' because my dad kept a stock in the greenhouse for heating during the cold evenings. In the small town where I lived there was a motorcycle garage who would sell us Castrol R (was the R for racing?), which we mixed with some proportion of Castrol XXL. Ether was from the local chemist who happily sold it to me in quart bottles. The only time he batted an eyelid was when I asked for Amyl Nitrate. Once my mum had confirmed the intended use he would again happily sell it to me, then aged about 12/13, in quarter pint bottles. Try asking for Amyl Nitrate in a chemists now! How innocent we were.

Happy days

Derek

[A.A. Barry]

YES, in aus, the chemist only ever asked  once, what I was doing with the ether,and I suppose, like most of us, never lied, cos if DAD found out,we had lied, look out, so yea it was a different day's........... i/3 ether,1/3 kerosene,1/3 castor oil, mum was always asking" BARRY have you taken the castor oil AGAIN, just wait till you father get's home"and when he did get home, "look women he's a boy, i'll get some more tomorrow", and so it went on...................but this barstad "Burford" tiapan. 3 or 4 months nailed to verander floor would not keep running,many sliced fingers, bandages, and rags, until 1 day the cyl. came loose(they  were screw in type), at 12yrs old I knew it had to be tighten, but WHAT with, dad was at work, so out wiyth the old bike univ. tool and into the exhaust port it went,yep it tigthend up the cyl. alright, but when I went start it (try) the piston "gnarled it's way up the cyl. Dad was due home so I put it away,A few weeks went by and it got the better of me, ,so I somehow unscewed the head ,then with a spanner unscrewed the cly. The piston had 3 grooves in it up the side, HAH ,says I, I'll knock em down again, and with the same spanner  "reamed out the "burrs" on the exhaust ports. put it back together , no more "drag". next day after school, back on the verander it went, and to my supprise it went fist flick, and ran a whole tank full, MUM was pissed off, oil and ether stink through the house , sisters where not happy either, but I was, so went dad came home , got going again, after, he said "how in heavens did you get it to run" Didn't lie, "just a few little things I did" . Had that engine for years, until OS max came along........Barry  

[Alistair Taylor]

Phil

check out the feature on the Keilkraft Cobra on this website:

KK Cobra on Modelengine News

Could be time to invest in that lathe, as they're issuing plans for this motor.

The site is also well worth a browse for the other antiquarian motors that appear.

AlistairT 

[Simon Chaddock]

Eric

Burtonwood & M56? Yes the main runway was one of the longest in Europe but I did not know it stretched all the way across the Mersey!!!

[Former Member]

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[Chris Bott - Moderator]

Would have been mid 70s that I started. Keil Kraft free flight.
A Jetex Javelin I remember for some reason, probably because I ignited the tissue and dope when I lit the motor, Still launched it and it went Ok for a while lol.
Then onto profile C/L with diesel engines (oh the smell!)
First radio was a McGregor single channel. It had crystals so was "advanced". Press once for left and twice for right if I remember correctly. In a Mercury Matador that you can still buy today.
First Propo was Wiltron 4-5. It's still in the loft and the DEACs are OK.

Things have come a long way since then, not so sure about my flying skills keeping up though.

[David Bowlas]

I started in the early 50's with small rubber powered balsa and tissue models which flew in the garden, often destroying themselves against the old pear tree. Progressed to jetex power for the same models, finally Jetex powered model rockets - which were not very successful.

My next step was slightly bigger models using a small ED bee diesel, remember the injured fingers starting them !!. Like others it was not often my pocket money stretched to buy tins of diesel fuel from the Model Aerodrome shop in Temple Row Birmingham, so I had to buy Ether and Caster oil from Doctors the Chemist on the Bristol Road in Edgbaston, and mix my fathers camping stove paraffin.

With no local arge space to fly I had to use Control Line on all my models, the best was a circular "Flying Saucer" model very simply made from a circle of Balsa with the edges rounded off, I dont think it was profiled to a correct aerofoil shape. 

On and off over the years Ive made a few models, but none so adventurous as in the early 50's. 

[Phils]

Alistair,

Thanks mate!

Just taken me back looking at it, smart little engine for its time (must get up in that loft this weekend to find it!) Got that weird plane ready to go yet?

[Barry Chamberlain]

The 60's -  couldn't afford to run the really big (!) Merco 60's glow plug engines which smelt funny anyway. However we made up for that by endlessly running our diesels in a vice - OK sometimes they jumped out and bit us.  Mainly though, having lost many a free flight model, C/L team racing was the main excitement for me and my pals. The Olly Tiger was the dogs in those days but my horizon was limited to being the proud owner of an ETA 15 - and did it look good under it's aluminium streamlined cover on my own design model which earnt me third place in the RAFMAA Team Race Championships of 1962 or 1963. We also had fun compressing glass capsules of amyl-nitrate  in our running vice and boy, would  those jaws vibrate! Wooden or plastic props were the order of the day. We had a wonderful method of accelerating the run-in process when an engine was required pretty quickly. This was achieved by getting the new engine running as lean as possible, then, at the chosen moment (determined entirely by when one's adrenaline was at it's height), we would swiftly intoduce a screwdriver into the whirling disc. The engine would immediately run extremely fast (removing all the high spots off the shaft) before lack of a prop caused it to stop. At the same time we swiftly yet deftly performed the dodge the prop bits routine - a dance which never quite got the Olympic classification which it sorely deserved. Interesting times indeed.

[Martin McIntosh]

Can anyone remember the ECC Telecommander 951A Rx and ED ground based  carrier wave Tx complete with earth spike and a microswitch on the end of a wire? 8`6" tank antenna. The Rx was suspended on four rubber bands to protect the single triode valve poking out of the top and the relay which operated at about 3mA if you were lucky. The rubber driven escapement was protected by a hinged former which contained a mercury switch which would disconnect the power to the rudder escapement when the rudder `stuck on` and the model spiralled downwards due to radio failure. The RCME UK and Tinytone Rx`s changed all that and transformed r/c flying for many home builders, and at only 14 on a paper round I could just about afford the (3) batteries for a weekend`s flying, but a heated screwdriver tip is not the best thing to solder a Rx with! I probably got more enjoyment from the hobby in those days and still like to dabble in the electronics side if possible (the `E` in RCME) but give me a modern 2.4 set any day now.

[Aussie Bob]

  I remember the R/C models in Aeromodeller magazine,huge bulky fuzes with a tiny motor perched up front and sooo expensive! We used to fly C/L in the local park with our Taipan[Aussie] diesels.Dad was a doc and used to wonder where his ether and castor oil stocks were disappearing.

[Brian Cooper]

In 1960, I was just a little lad of 6 years of age.  In those days I was flying rubber-powered, balsa models which came in a plastic bag and slotted together in about 60 seconds.  Good old Sleek Streaks…!!

It wasn’t until I was 8 that I bought my first I.C. engine and begun to discover the delights of free flight models.

After saving up my pocket money for about a year, I bought my very first set of radio when I was 10.  It was a second-hand set of super-regen (only one model could be in the sky at a time) single channel radio by ED, complete with a valve Tx.

This was replaced very quickly by a superhet (up to 6 models in the sky … woo-hoo) “wee” MacGregor single channel outfit – which was totally useless.  It spent more time back at the factory than at the flying field.  MacGregor’s finally gave me my money back and I rushed out and bought an RCS single channel outfit --- which worked perfectly.

Around the age of 12, I got an RCS 10 channel reeds outfit.  This was superb.  Multi channel flying at last.  It was ultra reliable and I had huge fun with it in a Senior Falcon, and a few other models.

At the age of fourteen I bought my first digital proportional outfit --- a Simprop 5, and built myself a Gangster 52, fitted a powerful engine, and just had loads of fun burning holes in the sky, and terrifying the worms with fast, low passes. 

And since then, aeromodelling has remained a way of life --- the novelty has simply never worn off.

B.C.

[Garry Pollard]

Trevor     Being 73 yrs young you coments struck a cord. The models we used to fly  had an actuator rubber powered which gave you rudder left one pulse rudder right 2 pulses up elevator 3 pulses and slow motor 4 pulses. Can you imagine trying to remember that lot when model was legging it into the distance. I dont ever remember landing a model in those days, they always flew away. Name and address was always inside the model and quite often model would be home before me, having serched the countryside for several hours .Would I like to go back to those days? not flying R/C I can assure you                                                   Garry

[Former Member]

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[Former Member]

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[Phil Winks]

Being a mere puppy at 52 i was only 5 in 61 and didn't get bitten by the model flying bug for some 5 years amazes me how much things had advanced by then although the free flight scene seems to have been much the same

[Former Member]

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[A.A. Barry]

You know Guy's, like most, have "carted around " the boxes of modeling "stuff", shifting (as a young'un), lost a few bits, and girl's, but never have lost the most all enderring  "love " for model aircraft. As the babe's were born so the models aquired a new space, in the house, then, had to be moved to the shed, amasing thing's you can do when required, suddenly a bench appears, then new lighting, power points put in by a mate, refreashments supplied, of course, as it almost to the point of YEEESSS,  she says, oh look I can put my car in there, carn't I .................. so the next time you make sure there is NO front access, from farm houses , 2 room flats, houses kids off to school, thinking ONE day ......and so it comes kids leave home, but before he/she does, you must "book it" other wise she will claim it, Quicker than she used to take her panties down...  1961  short pants and sandels, window shopping  and annoying the local hobby shop owner, every day after school.  AS one "skit" by Monty Python states, "you tell the kids today an' threy won't beleve ya"..  Barry

[Phils]

Barry, Strange you mentioned moving stuff to the shed then aquiring power points and stuff.

I had an old bed built from a readers digest DIY book. The bed, made of pine planks, slotted together and was relegated to the shed when kids grew up and it was not needed (but I could not find it in me tochuck away). Recently, I found it and needing a model rack, realised that if I slung it from the beams in the garage via (still more) wooden struts, it worked a treat. I now have models, kit boxes and several other items within easy reach of me. (I also made sure there were plenty of powerpoints when I built the garage).

Phil.

[A.A. Barry]

 Barry